First-of-its-kind long-term study at Virginia Tech shares how cannabis use can affect driving

WHY IT MATTERS: Patients who use cannabis medicinally need to understand that subjective feelings of being “fine to drive” can diverge significantly from actual measured driving performance, particularly in the hours following consumption. CLINICAL OVERVIEW: The relationship between cannabis consumption and driving performance is genuinely complex, because THC impairment does not follow the same linear dose-response curve that alcohol does, and standard roadside testing fails to capture the nuanced ways cannabis affects reaction time, lane tracking, and divided attention. Tolerance, consumption method, cannabinoid ratios, and individual pharmacokinetics all influence how significantly any given person is impaired behind the wheel.

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