Paul Armentano on Marijuana & Driving

any type of drug. Hello, Psychoactive listeners. Today's topic is the subject of marijuana and driving. Now that's obviously something that lots of us, you know, wonder about, whether it's because we ourselves use marijuana, or use marijuana and drive ourselves, or we know people who do. There's a lot of debate about it politically, with people saying we can't legalize marijuana till we've resolved this issue, and other people saying

it's not really a major issue. So what I decided was to have the person who may be the world's leading expert on this subject come on and join me on Psychoactive. His name is Paul Armentano. He is the deputy director of Normal for many years. He's been working at Normal since which is the same year that I founded the Lindusmis Center, which eventually became Drug Policy Alliance,

So we're talking like twenty eight years. And he is widely regarded in the world of people who think and study marijuana as sort of the brain, the brain about marijuana, the one who is familiar with the thousands and thousands of studies, who has synthesized it. Now. Normal is, of course the organization of the marijuana consumer, and so Paul obviously comes to this from a certain political perspective, one that favors the legalization of marijuana, but also very much

to an advocate of responsible marijuana use. So Paul, thank you ever so much for joining me on Psychoactive. Well, thank you Ethan for having me and as someone who, when I was cutting my teeth on this issue, looked to someone like you as the brains of the marijuana movement, I am flattered by your compliments. Well, I mean, Paul, I have to tell you, for so many years it's like when a marijuana question pops up, you know who's the go to person. And the fact that you work

at a fellow advocacy organization. On the one hands, a plus sometimes to be a negative because you think people are gonna be biased. But what if consistently seen with your writing and your research on this is that you really have an objective perspective, and I think that you're basically not just thinking about how this issue plays out in terms of the legalization debates, but also how do we make sure that people who use marijuana stay safe

and don't hurt anybody else. Absolutely, you know, I've always approached this issue from the standpoint of we want to have evidence based policies, and in order to have evidence based policies, there's got to be somewhat out there who's

reviewed and understood and synthesize the evidence. And this is something where we have data, we have facts, But for so often the narrative that exists in this country, whether it's around marijuana or a number of other public policies, it isn't really driven by the facts and the data.

It's driven by rhetoric. It's driven by emotion. And being cognizant of that, I did not want my own work and the messaging that I would put out there to be anything but evidence based That's always been my goal, and I feel like by doing that we can have

better conversations and ultimately we can have better sensible policies. Okay, So Paul, what I wanted to do is take our audience through this step by staff, and at points there's going to be elements of understanding we search methodology and why certain studies are flawed or why certain studies are gold standards. So I've asked Paul to try to explain that as carefully as possible. But let's start off with the first question, which is how does one test the

impact of marijuana on driving? Is it in driver simulators, is it on people who are actually driving? What are the different techniques for testing the impact of marijuana on driving. Well, one thing to keep in mind, Eatan, is that researchers have been posing this question for decades. This isn't something that only post legalization investigators said, this is something we ought to study, this is something we ought to understand better.

Researchers around the world have been looking into this issue going back several decades. In fact, some of the earliest studies that we have were conducted in the Netherlands, but they are actually sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration the United Dates, and in those studies, which probably the methods that they use will not be replicated again anytime soon. But in those initial studies, believe it or not, subjects were permitted to smoke marijuana and then get behind

the wheel and drive in actual real world traffic. They had a driving instructor in the passenger seat. The instructor had the ability that was essentially a kill switch on the car, and the instructor had the ability if he or she desired to just shut the car off in the middle of the experiment. But Nitz has did three studies of this nature, one where individuals smoked marijuana drove in real world conditions in it relatively rural areas, another study where they drove in urban areas, and a third

study where they drove in rush hour congested traffic. And that was one of the ways researchers chose to study the impact of marijuana and driving. Interestingly, the drivers in that study did not have accidents. Certainly, I could imagine the liability if they did, but they did not. And those studies were done again. They were published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration the early ninety nineties, But since that time, NITZA sponsored additional studies, and many of

those are actually driving simulator studies. So again, individuals they'd perform on a driving simulator test to get a baseline level of performance. Then they are administered cannabis and virtually all of these instances they're inhaling cannabis, and then twenty thirty minutes later they're asked to drive on a simulated course and their performance is compared to their earlier baseline performance. And there's a number of simulator studies that have been

done that way over the decades as well. Now, those studies that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, I guess you abbreviated NITCH, the ones they paid to do in a those were back in the eighties early nineties. Those are done the early nineties ah HA, And that was one of the ones that found essentially no difference between marijuana users and drug free drivers. At the time, they found very little difference in drivers performance after inhaling cannabis

versus their baseline performance. What they essentially identified was that drivers under the influence of cannabis or cognizant that they were under the influence and therefore they engaged in compensatory driving behaviors. In other words, they drove more slowly than they had at baseline, they made fewer lane changes, they left greater headway between their vehicle and the vehicle in

front of them. Essentially, there were minor differences and performance, and those differences were fell into the category of compensatory driving. And I imagine there's some bias built into this in favor of marijuana's safety findings, because the people knew that they were engaged in the test and that they were being observed, so they were going to be ultra conscious

of trying to drive carefully. That's very likely. In fact, when you look at some of the driving simulator studies, you see greater differences between baseline performance and performance after

inhaling cannabis in the simulator studies. Then you saw those initial on road studies, and the variable could very well be that subjects in the latter studies knew they weren't driving on the road they do they were essentially engaging in in in a sort of a video game, and that the stakes were not as high as were those subjects that were actually driving on the road. A real world traffic Now, when we talk about the notion of driving under the influence of marijanners, but what does it

actually mean to say driving under the influence? I mean, we know on the one hand that if you've just gotten high and you're feeling high, you are under the influence. And we know on the other hand that if you haven't smoked marijuana in days but it's still showing up in your urine because marijuanted tens to show up in urine for a long time, that you're not driving under

the influence. But there must be something in between. Is it all just a gray area for when one says you're no longer under the influence, it's a gray area to some respects under the law in certain jurisdictions that have imposed traffic safety laws that aren't based on identifiable impairment. In those instances, theoretically you could have someone test positive for marijuana and be charged with driving under the influence,

even absent of any evidence of impaired driving. But in the majority of jurisdictions of this country that is not the case. To be charged with driving under the influence of drugs or driving under the influence of cannabis. There has to be evidence of recent ingestion or exposure to a controlled substance, and then there must be evidence that someone is unable to drive a motor vehicle safely because they are under the influence of that substance that they

recently ingested. And let me be clear that standard applies regardless of the legality or illegality of the substance that is consumed. But you know, I'm mostly think about situations like, for example, if I take in edible and when I'm coming down from the edible, it's seen my fatigue can really come on fast. And I'm wondering like the point at which we say somebody is no longer under the

influence of marijuana. And I'm just talking about not from a legal perspective, but in terms of people who use marijuana and drive. Are there times when you're still under the influence of marijuana, you thinking it can impact you're driving, but not really aware of it. Sure, and Ethan, Again, like so many of these questions, I imagine you'll oppose to be these aren't novel questions. Again, Scientists have have asked this question multiple times, and we have numerous studies

that have been designed to try and answer it. And if one is to look at the totality of data out there and try to find a consensus, it appears that again, these are studies that are almost exclusively done with subjects who are inhaling cannabis. So the timeline for individuals using other formulations of cannabis like edibles or tinctures or dabs are going to be entirely different. And I would dare say right upfront has not been studied very much,

if at all. But with regard to inhaled cannabis, study after study tells us that about twenty minutes, the forty minutes perhaps sixty minutes after a person inhales cannabis is when they are most acutely impaired when it comes to

psychomotor performance. And we know this based on a variety of studies where individuals are given a number of psychomotor, behavioral or cognitive tasks at baseline, they then in hail marijuana, and then they continue to do those tasks again thirty minutes later, sixty minutes later, two hours later, four hours later, and what we see is the greatest differentiation from their baseline performance tends to take place in that twenty to sixty minute window, and then within about four hours after

that window they returned to their baseline performance altogether. There's an interesting recent study that came out looking at driving simulator tests, and to your question, individuals were asked when they felt when they perceived that they had returned to baseline performance, and interestingly, a number of subjects perceived the fact that they did about one hour earlier or before

their actual objective performance returned to baseline performance. But again, we're talking about maybe a total window of about four to four and a half hours, but really about a forty minute window at that twenty to sixty minute point where we see the greatest or most significant changes in performance. So we have some folks thinking that the effects of cannabis have worn off slightly before they actually have worn off.

And now are there also opposite studies? I think I've seen where people think they're still somewhat in paired, but in fact they're driving perfectly fine. Correct. What we see in a number of different simulator studies and some close course driving studies is that when individuals are asked to assess their own performance after the fact, scientists will say, well,

how do you think you did. We have a number of studies where the subjects will say, you know, I think I did rather poorly, But then when their actual performance is measured or assessed objectively, they did much better. They drove much better overall than the subjects perceived that they did. So they actually perceived themselves to perform worse than they actually did perform, and we see that a

number of studies. We have one particular study where individuals were given oral THHC and asked to drive on a closed course, and a number of subjects interestingly refused to

do so. They said, I don't feel that I can operate this vehicle safely at this point in time, which I bring up because it's so different than the reaction we often associate with alcohol, where we've had public messaging for decades that say, hey, look, take the keys from somebody who might be wanting to drive under the influence of alcohol. Because so many individuals under the alcohol, they

become overconfident in their ability to drive safely. We tend to see just the opposite reaction with individuals that are

impaired by cannabis. So, Paul, I want to get into this difference between marijuana and alcohol and to impact on driving shortly, but let's just start by breaking down the different aspects of driving that when we're looking at the impact of marijuana, alcohol, a cycleactive drug or activity on driving, we're talking about things like how fast people break, whether they can keep a straight line, or whether they're weaving. What are the other variables that people are being tested

for in terms of driving safety. So generally, when these driving safety tests are done, they're assessing a number of different objective metrics. They're looking at not just overall speed, but the ability to maintain a consistent speed. They're looking at how much headway drivers leave between their vehicle and a vehicle in front of them. They're looking at reaction time, break latency, how well drivers focus on not only what's going on in front of them and traffic, but what's

also taking place in their peripheral vision. They're looking at what's something known as standard deviation and lateral positioning, which is really just a fancy way of saying, do these drivers weave? Do they stay in their lane, or do they weave across us the median? Those are largely the

issues that are being assessed. Certainly, if we're talking about a driving simulator study, scientists will assess as they're a greater likelihood that they had a motor vehicle accident during the course of the simulated driving test than they did at baseline. Those are the sort of metrics that are looked at. I see. Okay, So let's get down to the basic alcohol versus marijuana differential, right, I mean, I think there's a broad awareness that alcohol is problematic for driving.

And if you could just explain what makes alcohol so problematic and then why is marijuana less so well, they manifest in very different ways. In fact, in some respects, very opposite ways. As I mentioned earlier, one of the telltale signs of someone under the influence of alcohol is they tend to become overconfident in their driving abilities, and as a result, they tend to engage in more reckless

driving behavior then they would win sober. They drive at a faster speed, they make more lane changes, they drive in a more aggressive manner, and when you ask them to assess their own performance, they tend to believe that they're performing better than they actually are. With cannabis, we tend to see a lot of shifts in the opposite direction. Individuals tend to become less confident in their ability to

drive a vehicle safely. They become overly acutely aware of the fact that they are under the influence, and as a result, they try to minimize their risks during that period of time by engaging in compensatory driving behavior. They engage in fewer lane changes, they drive at a more slow speed, they leave greater distance between their vehicle and

the vehicle in front of them. They engage in behaviors that would allow them to try to minimize their risks, whereas under the influence of alcohol, people tend, whether knowingly or unknowingly, to engage in behaviors that are more likely to maximize their risk of an accident. It is a

consistent finding. Again, whether we're talking about driving on a closed course, driving in a driving simulating machine, or these early studies that we talked about from the Netherlands where individuals drove in actual real world traffic consistently across the board, subjects drive more slowly than they did at baseline in all of these different models, and again, just like driving more slowly as a consistent finding throughout the literature, this

is also a consistent finding drivers under the influence of cannabis tend to weave. They weave more so under the influence of cannabis than they did at baseline. That is a finding we see again and again and again, and in terms of safety vs. Of you, the car in front of you, in terms of observation of traffic lights turning yellow, red things, they tend to leave more headway. Again,

because that's compensatory behavior. There are in some instances there can be some change in reaction time may react slightly more slowly, although that is an inconsistent finding that is not afining you see throughout the literature. You also see in some studies but not others, a lack of driver's ability to respond quickly to things that might be in their peripheral vision as opposed to what's happening right in

front of them. But what about tolerance. I mean, it's the question that if you're a regular marijuana user, as you get older, more experienced, you just develop a tolerance to the effects of marijuana. Or is it that I'm actually learning how to drive high or is that the same thing. No, I believe it's tolerance. The data on this,

I think is pretty clear and consistent. Certainly anecdotally, I'm sure you and your audience has heard the individuals that are more habitual consumers of cannabis perceive becoming tolerant to some degree, certainly more so, or they have a more blunted effect that they might have had from cannabis when they were more naive to it. By tolerance, you mean basically experiencing less of the psychoactive effect. Yes, yes, and

and the data backs dat up. In fact, there's some recent data providing a biological theory as to why that would be the case. But clearly, I think it is safe to say that the more frequently a person uses cannabis, the more tolerant they become to some not all, of the effects of cannabis. But with respect to psycho motor influencing effects, those are effects that people do tend to become more tolerant to over time when again they're frequent

users of cannabis. Now, of course, cannabis has a dose related response, So even someone who might be tolerant to the effects of cannabis, if they were suddenly going to use a much more concentrated form of cannabis, are a much more higher potent form of cannabis. One would not expect them to suddenly be tolerant to that dosage or that potency simply because they become somewhat tolerant to lower

potency cannabis over time. Now, Paul, you're saying that when it comes to things like edibles and the drinkables and all these other sorts of things, there's really very little evidence out there right now as to whether or not their impact on driving will turn out to be similar to this impact of smoking marijuana. That is correct. Again, most of the studies, in fact, almost all of them I can only think of a handful of exceptions, have looked at inhaled cannabis. I think researchers did this for

a number of reasons. One, we're talking about, in some cases studies going back thirty forty years, inhaling cannabis through joints or through marijuana cigarettes was the primary way people use cannabis at that time, so the studies reflect that. I think there's also some expediency to this as well. We know that the effects of inhaled cannabis are fairly rapid, so when designing a study, I think it's easier for researchers to design to study where people inhale cannabis and

then they begin testing them literally minutes later. As opposed to if we were going to design to study looking at oral absorption with th HC, we're gonna be talking a much longer timeline and one that's much more variable from subject to subject to subject. You could have twenty subjects all taking the same oral dosage of th HC, but the duration of effect and the onset of effects could literally be different for all twenty of them. But

why is that so different from marijuana. There's somebody who's taking edible every day. They're going to be familiar with effects, They're going to be experienced, they're gonna have tolerance, right as opposed to somebody who's a naive or doesn't know his dose. Is that radically different than it is with smokables.

The difference between the two has to do with the fact there's much greater variation of effect from dose to dose with oral administration of th HC, and that's simply due to what we call the pharmacokinetics of th HC, which refers to how the body absorbs the active drug once it's been ingested. When a person in hails cannabis. Th HC goes from the lungs to the blood stream very quickly and then passes the blood brain barrier within minutes, and a person begins to feel the effects during that

period of time. It's a very different process when a person consumes th HC orally like in an edible. In that case, they consume an edible, th HC goes to the stomach. From there it goes to the liver. The liver metabolizes THC, and this is a key point, and when it does so, it converts th HC to another equal potent or some people would argue even more potent metabolite or byproduct known as eleven hydroxy th hc from the liver. Then both eleven hydroxy th HC and th

HC go to the blood stream. They then go past the blood brain barrier. That's why then ninety minutes, a hundred and twenty minutes later a person begins to feel the effects. But like the effects they typically feel with smoking cannabis, where they're largely just feeling the effects of th HC, in this case they're feeling the effects of simultaneously of th HC and eleven hydroxy th hc, And because that eleven hydroxy th hc is at least as potent as th hc, they're feeling not only a more

amplified effect, but a slightly different effect. They're feeling the effect of two psychoactive compounds at that point in time, and the degree to which the liver how much eleven hydroxy th hc it produces, that can change from day to day based on whether a person has a full stomach or an empty stomach, or the way their body at that moment metabolized th hc. It's a very different, less predictable experience I see. And comparing all this to alcohol.

With alcohol, people develop a tolerance to the psychoactive effects as well. But is that less consequential in terms of the safety of their driving than it is with marijuana. You know, that's a very good question, Ethan. We hear this from time to time from the public policy standpoint, where do you bring up things like, well, you know, people become tolerant to all sorts of substances that can

influence driving behavior. But when we look at say, traffic safety laws as they pertain for alcohol, there is no exception that says, well, Hey, this is the standard that we hold some people up to for driving under the influence, but we hold individuals who are alcoholics are habitual drinkers to a different standard because they have tolerance. I think

it's an interesting philosophical discussion. I don't have the answer in that I'm simply not as familiar with some of the literature with regard to tolerance for alcohol and the degree to which somebody who is a habitual alcohol drinker develops a greater tolerance for the skills necessary to drive a vehicle safely. But certainly we are aware that alcohol does impact people differently depending on if they are more or less naive or more or less experienced with the drug.

And we know this comes into play even with traffic safety laws, and that you can have a person who is very naive to alcohol clearly be under the influence by having one or two drinks and being below the point oh eight threshold. And conversely, you could theoretically have somebody who is a much more experienced alcohol drinker who would perform better than that naive person, even though they might have a hire blood alcohol content at that time.

We'll be talking more after we hear this add when it comes to alcohol, right, it's now accepted across the United States, right, that point o a of blood alcohol content is the maximum, except in Utah, where I think it's point oh five. And in most states they basically have either zero or point oh two for people under the age of twenty one, and something either at the kid level or slightly above for commercial drivers, bus drivers,

things like that. But in the case of cannabis, it sounds like that sort of per se level that it makes some sense in the alcohol field. But even so they sent it does make sense in the alcohol field, given the variability of how people experience alcohol, it makes dramatically less sense in the marijuana field. The cannabis field, whether you're talking about certainly urine, which can show up for weeks after but even blood tests. Is that right?

And why? Yeah, you're absolutely correct, And there's a whole lot to unpack here with what you said first. With respect to alcohol, you're correct that there is this point of eight fairly universal standard that exists in almost every state except for Utah. But let's keep in mind it wasn't always point away. This standard has changed over time does some degree, based on what the science tells US, but by at large, it's also changed just with respect

to what society will tolerate. The fact is it used to be higher in this country. Now it's point oh a. There's a push to make it point oh five. But if we look abroad, there's some countries like Sweden where the limits point oh two. Now they're not looking at different data in Sweden and basing their public policy off different data that we are here. We understand that the higher blood alcohol content one has, the more likely to engage in activities that are increase the risk of accident.

So it's not just about that, it's about what as a society, what risk we're willing and unwilling to accept. And clearly in some European countries and some other parts of the world, I would dare say where alcohol is less sort of entrenched in the culture, they're less willing to accept driving accidents attributable to alcohol. And in the United States were war willing to accept it. But we're

less willing to accept it now. We might have been several decades ago, and that's why the standard has gone down. But with respect to how alcohol is very different. The real key is that we know through decades worth of data that there is a correlation between the more one drinks and the higher their blood alcohol content, and that their maximal level of driving impairment coincides with their maximal

blood alcohol levels. Okay, so as blood alcohol levels rise, a person's driving performance becomes worse, and that coincides with the more they drink, and then as their levels their blood alcohol content levels fall, they begin to return to baseline performance. So we have this linear model. That linear model doesn't exist for cannabis, and frankly, we don't have to just single out cannabis here. It doesn't the this for the majority of psychotropic substances that impair driving performance.

That's why this per se model that has changed over the years and that doesn't even have a global consensus only exists for alcohol. If alcohol didn't follow this linear model, because the body largely absorbs alcohol the same way each time, and we can make as sets ements based on weight with regard to blood alcohol levels. If we didn't have that linear correlation, we wouldn't have per SE levels for alcohol. In fact, per SE levels for alcohol only date back

about forty or fifty years. The reason we don't have these levels for cannabis or opioids or a number of other drugs that we don't impact driving performance is because there is no linear correlation. When a person inhales cannabis. Their THHC blood levels are highest within five to ten minutes after inhaling cannabis, but as we talked about earlier, their dry having performance is going to be most impacted

twenty the sixty minutes after they had inhaled cannabis. But during that period of time, their th HC blood levels aren't going up. They're actually going down, So they're falling at a time when a person is most likely to

be under the influence. And then after they fall rapidly, they begin the plateau about three or four hours after inhalation, and they don't go down to zero, but they plateau around two or three nanograms per milli leader and they stay there for hours, so that those levels can still be detectable long after the effects of th HC have

worn off. So we have this absolute lack of correlation where we can detect th HC and blood, but that test will not tell us when this person was most recently exposed to cannabis, and it doesn't tell us anything with respect to whether or not they're impaired. We all agree the influence cannabis can be somewhat problematic, and we'll

get into shortly how it compares to other risks. But in terms of what the testing should be, I mean, we hear opponents of legalization saying we can't lealize marijuana until we figure out this driving due influence of marijuana issue, right, I mean you hear that being used as a political issue, but it's also being raised in a legitimate way by law enforcement to say, you know, we don't know exactly

how to handle this or what to do. So when you look at the other things that are emerging, the sort of breathalyzer type things, or swabbing the mouth for saliva, or I think somebody came up with an app of some sort, what do you think are the cutting edge, the most practical and most pragmatic in terms of detecting impair driving involving cannabis. Well, number one, we need to get away from drug detection, because that's all a breathalyzer test,

for instance, is. Now keep in mind, we have breathalyzers that detect the level of alcohol and breath that test in and of itself would be used if we didn't have other data correlating well at alcohol levels with impairment. So keep in mind, the only reason a breathalyzer detection test is valid and has utility for alcohol is because we have the other side of the coin. We have all of this data that tells us with some degree of certainty that if a person tests positive at this level,

we can make these presumptions. We lack the ability to make those presumptions with cannabis, and again with all of these other substances out there that also impaired driving performance. So the question here isn't can we come up with a th HC detection test, for instance, even a roadside detection test. We already have those. We have oral saliva testing that could be administered at the side of the road. We have breath detection testing for th HC. That's not

the problem. The problem is we don't learn any information sation that we need to know from those tests. Simply detecting somebody with THHC and their breath tells us very little because we can't correlate the detection regardless of the quantity detected with recent exposure and with impairment. Of performance.

So we need to move away from this idea that we need to have different ways to detect certain compounds in one system to the question of how do we have the ability to provide law enforcement officers with the ability to use validated tests and measurements of impairment of performance. We know that there are different skills and behaviors that tend to be influenced by cannabis. We mentioned reaction time earlier. Another one is short term memory recall. Another objective metric

is perception of time. That's confirmed in the literature. People under the influence of cannabis tend to underestimate the passage of time. So the idea here is that we could train officers like we do already. We have drug recognition evaluators police officers who go through trading and they have a twelve step protocol to determine if one is under

the influence of a substance other than alcohol. Based on how these subjects perform on this twelve point protocol, we can incorporate into those sort of protocols these validated measurements for whether or not someone's under the influence of cannabis. The time perception test within the d R is known

as the Romberg test. It's already there, but there's other parts of that twelve step protocol that are really highly questionable, looking at things like pupil dilation that really isn't relevant or not to whether one may or may not be under the influence of cannabis. But we could incorporate things like short term memory recall using app technology. We could incorporate reaction time by having individuals do handheld performance tests.

I think that's really the future of where this needs to go, because then we're not just addressing the issue of allowing officers to identify who may or may not be driving under the infanso of cannabis, but it would allow officers to determine who may or may not simply be driving impaired, regardless of why they're driving impaired, whether it's from a lack of sleep, or whether it's from a prescription medication, or whether it's from a controlled substance.

So there's some analogies here beteen testing of the impact of drugs on driving and testing about whether somebody's impaired in the workplace, where ultimately it's not did you or didn't you consume a drug. It's are you in fact able to do the job you're called upon to do, whether it's driving or your work job in a responsible and safe way. Absolutely, and we're seeing these sort of technologies being developed. There's a handheld technology known as Ruin

that has been used in clinical studies. There's a very interesting study looking at Druid and comparing the results using Druid to the results of officers who are trained in

standardized field testing. So individuals in the study either were or were not under the influence of cannabis, and officers, again trained officers ran them through the standard field sobriety test battery and they also tested them using the components of the Druid app, which again measures things like short term memory, recall, reaction time, perception of time, perception of

the passage of time. And what the study found was that it was the use of the impairment application, the Druid app that was more sensitive and more accurate in identifying the subjects who were actually under the influence of cannabis than was the field sobriety tests things like the one legs stand the walk in turn tests that have

been in existence for decades. Believe it or not ethan have only been validated to identify individuals under the influence of alcohol, and believe I know plenty of defense attorneys who would claim that even that part of the equation is questionable. But the reality is is when scientists have taken the field sobriety tests and applied it the subjects under the influence of other substances other than alcohol, there's no correlation between how subjects perform on those tests and

whether or not they're actually impaired. Unfortunately, all these decades later, many police are still using the field sobriety tests to make determinations or guests of bits about whether people are impaired by substances other than alcohol, when again, the test was never designed for that purpose. So you're a fan of the druid app is perhaps being one of the

best options out there for detecting real impairment. I do because again I'm aware of the different components of the tests and that those are scientifically validated measurements, in this case for cannabis. Now, you know, critics of something like this will say, you know the problem here, Paul, is

how are we going to establish the baseline performance? Because every individual is going to have a different baseline, and perhaps an app like this is a valid technology for the user for somebody who is wondering whether or not they are safe to drive, but it would be more difficult to use in the workplace or to have used by law enforcement, because they won't know if the person is testing in a way that varies from their baseline performance, to which I'd say, the way we go about trying

to solve that problem, and the way the makers of Druid are e fact going about this, is by having massive amounts of people use the app to gauge baseline performance, and then have them use the app after they've used particular substance, so we can have generalized baselines, so we can have some idea what the average person's performances on this app versus their average performance if in fact they're impaired, and we essentially have baseline data that we can compare

somebody's performance too. I think there is a feasibility and being able to do that. It's not perfect, but it provides I think a very important and necessary tool that currently we're lacking both in the workplace and again with

respect to this question of roadside testing. Well, one of the things I've liked about the way that you've written and spoken on this issue is the way which you compare the relative risks of driving into the influence of cannabis to other substances and also to other activities, and putting it in perspective right, And so we all know that alcohol, by enlarge, is more dangerous in cannabis for the vast majority of drivers. We also know that combining drugs,

if you combine alcohol with marijuana, it escalates everything. If you combine opioids or benzos like valium or ambulent ever, it escalates the dangers. I think at one point I read that you were saying that even things like antihistamines r antibiotics have some psychoactive effect, they can impact driving. So could you put the risk element of cannabis if you compare driving of cannabis with driving drug free, and then with driving under the influence of other substances, how

does it rate compare to all of these. Yeah, I'm really glad you asked that question, Ethan, because context is really key here, and there is a spectrum. There is a spectrum of risk, and there are behaviors people engage in every day that increase, at least theoretically, the risk of a motor vehicle accident. So the question really shouldn't be does cannabis potentially increase this risk? The question should be where on the spectrum of increased risks does cannabis fall.

And we have again so much data assessing this issue, much of the data being you know, very consistent, yielding the same result again and again. So to answer this question we need to have an understanding of what is an odds ratio. And an odds ratio estimates the probability of an event like say, in this case, a motor vehicle accident, versus the probability that such an event will

not occur. And so if there is a greater likelihood that engaging in a certain behavior is more likely to increase the likelihood of a certain outcome, that leads to an Odds ratio that is greater than one. If the behavior has no impact on increasing or decreasing the risk of an outcome, then you have an odds ratio of one. And of course, if the behavior you engage in decreased the risk of that outcome, you have to have an

odds ratio below one. If you look at the dozens and dozens of studies that have been performed throughout the world to assess do people that have th HC in their system or do th HC positive drivers, do they have a greater or a lesser likelihood than a drug free driver in being and involved in a motor vehicle accident. You see that the odds ratio associate with the THHC positive driver tends to be between about one point two at one point four. That translates to about a twenty

increased risk of accident compared to a drug free driver. Now, some individuals might say, well, Paul, that sounds really high, that sounds really problematic. The reality is, on this spectrum we talked about of behaviors that people engage in every day, and odds ratio of one point two or one point

three is exceedingly low. Again, you mentioned alcohol earlier. Individuals who are alcohol positive drivers but positive for levels of alcohol below the legal limits tend to at a minimum have an ODDS ratio of four, which would make them four times are likely to be involved in a motor vehicle accident compared to an alcohol free driver. You mentioned anahistamines earlier. The odds ratio social with anahistamines is about

one point one two or twelve percent. Is slightly lower than the risk associated with cannabis, but it's higher than one. That's not because I think anahistames are taking anahistamines are impairing people's ability to drive, but because I would presume that people taking anahistamines are not feeling very well that day and they may be more distracted drivers. We see

the same result with penicillin, for instance. Again, i'd argue people that are sick are taking penicillin, they're more distracted drivers. Therefore they're more likely to be engaged in accidents. Driving with two or more people in the same vehicle doubles the risk of an auto accident. And certainly one can have multiple passengers in the car and you're not violating the traffic safety laws. But we know that behaviors associated

with an in priest risk of accident. Tuning the radio nearly doubles one's risk of accident, and certainly some of the drugs you mentioned opioids, we associate with a doubling the risk of motor vehicle accident. Us of benzo diaz apines more than double the risk of accident. Use of amphetamines more than six times the risk of accident. So again, context here is very important. It's not saying that cannabis doesn't potentially influence some of the skills necessary to drive

a vehicle safely. It's not saying that THHC positive drivers present no risk, but the risk they do present compared to so many of these other behaviors is relatively low. And let me just conclude this by saying these figures applied individuals who test positive for th HC alone, because you are absolutely correct that this risk goes up exponentially when th HC is used in combination with alcohol. I worry about the idea of passing these arbitrary, one size

fits all and flexible standards. Would we know that there is so much variability here. I also think it is entirely reasonable to expect there to be a preponderance of evidence showing impairment of driving performance in order for the

state or a prosecutor to get a impaired driving conviction. Again, if we're looking at this from a legal standpoint, in the majority of states right now, in order to charge somebody with driving under the influence of marijuana, the state has to establish that there was evidence the driver recently consumed cannabis and that consumption impaired their ability to drive a motor vehicle safely. I don't think that's a very

difficult standard for the state to meet. And I say this from the standpoint of someone who has been a legal consultant, an advisor and involved in dozens in the defense of dozens and dozens of these sorts of prosecutions. I know the evidence that is presented in these cases. Usually the driver admits to having used cannabis. Usually there's evidence of recent use of cannabis in the car. Usually

you have a person engaging in very poor performance. When the d r E is interacting with them, or when the arresting officers interacting with them, there is usually quite a bit of evidence, including the reason for the poll over itself, well, the person weaved across the media and the person refused to stop at the stop sign. That totality of evidence, I believe, is what ought to be necessary to go forward with and get a d UI conviction. That's the way we do this when it comes to

other substances. Frankly, it's also the way we do prosecutions with regard to alcohol and instances where somebody seems to be based on their driving impaired by alcohol but is under the point oh eight limit. Police don't just let that person go and say, well, go ahead, go on your way. I think you're too impaired to drive, but you're under the point of wait on, nothing I can

do about it. No, they charge them with d u I, and then they have to meet the same standard for a d u I alcohol conviction that they would have to meet for a d u I drug conviction. And I can tell you when we look at data with regard to drug driving convictions in states like Washington and other states, there's almost no criminal prosecution that is more likely to yield a criminal conviction than driving under the influence.

I've seen no evidence that the law is not sufficient or that officers and prosecutors are unable to meet their burden of proof in these cases. Let's take a break here and go to an ADM. Well, I got a proposal for you. So, given what you said before about tolerance as well, what do you think about the idea that bureaus of Motor vehicles should be able to give

a test to drivers where somebody shows up. It says I want to get a stamp on my driver's license that allows me to drive under the influence of cannabis, and that the Bureau Motor Vehicle should administer tests where people a driver gets high before driving and then has the same kind of test that they might have a similar sort of test they have, you know, like when they first get their driver's license, right, and if they

can establish that their driving is unaffected by their cannabis consumption, they would get a stamp saying I'm okay to drive high. What do you think, Well, that's why I love you, Ethan. You're a big picture guy or a um I it's the first time I've heard such a proposals, the first time I've considered such a proposal, I would dare say, I think there's counter proposals that are more realistic because

they're more simplistic. Look, one lesson I think we can take away from our experience with driving under the influence of alcohol is not that we need a breathalyzer test

for marijuana, which I think would have no utility. But is this I'm old enough to remember when you could drive with an open container of alcohol in the car and then you couldn't because again our American culture change, the level with which we prioritize trying to discourage driving under the influence changed, and then the state's changed it along and said, you know what, if you're driving a vehicle, you simply can't have an open container of booze in

the car. Doesn't matter. If you could say, well, look I just I'm drinking one beer and driving. I'm not drunk, it doesn't matter. The state says you can't do that. When I talk to people about this issue, you know, Ethan, they don't know a metabolite from a nanagram and they don't want to. They don't care if somebody's operating a motor vehicle with five nanograms of th HC in their blood or twenty nanagrams of carboxy TC and their urine because they don't know what those things are and they

don't know what those numbers mean. What they tell me is I don't want someone smoking cot and driving. That's what they say. So why not apply a similar standard like we have with the open container law that says, look, if you're gonna get behind the wheel, there's no smoking in the car. You're not smoking your passengers aren't smoking, and if a law enforcement officer pulls you over and finds evidence that somebody's been smoking in the car, you've

all violated the traffic safety law. That could be the arbitrary line I could live with, And in those cases there be no need to even try to established whether or not the person was impaired or under the influence, because they've broken the law simply by the act of using cannabis wild driving. Well, look, you're being very pragmatic here.

I do appreciate that when we look around the country at the various states, are there states that are just doing this absolutely wrong with in terms of like per se amounts for marijuana, and are there some states that are doing it sort of better than most, And for that matter, what about internationally? Unfortunately, I wouldn't say there's

really an example of anyone getting this totally right. But of course we do have states like say California that has had medical access now for several decades and adult use access for several years, and they've maintained the same traffic laws during this entire period of time. They have an effect based standard, which, as I mentioned earlier, is the standard that the majority of states have that say, look, this isn't about what levels you may or may not

have of some compound in your blood or urine. This is about whether the state can prove you recently consumed a psychoactive substance and whether you demonstrably were impaired by that psychoactive substance while you were driving. Again, I think that's the way we do it, but I think we could do it better. I think we could have better training for drug recognition evaluators. I think we could have

more of them. I think any legalization a law, or that law becoming enacted should go part and parcel with a public service campaign that alerts people to the potential risks about drug driving, that makes people aware that such behavior is illegal. I think retailers who are selling these products could be trained with regard to messaging and talking

about risks of drug driving. I think there is a lot more that we could do to bring attention and awareness to this issue and to educate the consumers to dissuade them from engaging in this behavior. And then, of course there's some examples of states that I think are going about this all wrong. Washington State is a state that imposes an inflexible five nanogram per milli leader standard for the detection of th HC and blood. We can't correlate five nanograms of th HC with either recent use

of cannabis or impairment. Somebody might have five nanograms of th HC because they use cannabis ninety minutes ago or because they used it five days ago. There's no ability for us to back extrapolate based on that test result. That's a bad law. Interesting. So, Paul, you know, I see all these studies coming out. You know this for years now. Did the legalization of medical merril wan these

are the early studies increase auto accidents or not? And more recently, did the legalization of marij wand in a particular state increase auto accidents auto fatalities or not? Sure? That's a great question. This is probably the one question post legalization that is asked the most, either this or what's the packed on kids? Are more kids going to use marijuana after legalization than did before? Just like that question, people ask well, what's the impact on traffic safety with

regard to medical marijuana laws? And I would dare say there's very few researchers that are studying the impact of medical marijuana legalization on traffic safety anymore. For quite some time there were, but now it's moved on to looking at the effect of adult use laws. But if we looked at the totality of data, looking at traffic safety trends post medical marijuana, we saw no uptick in traffic accidents.

In fact, in a number of states we saw a decrease, and some studies also showed an overall decrease in accidents overall, including accidents due to alcohol and accidents due to opioids. With regard to adult use, which is what it's really more people's minds now. Initially, sort of the first wave of studies we saw coming out of Colorado and Washington.

In Oregon, we saw no uptick in accident rates. And then as the pool has gotten somewhat larger, and I would dare say more importantly retail access has become more prevalent in some of these states, some of this data has gotten more inconsistent. In particular, there's some data out of Colorado that shows an uptick in accidents, and then conversely, you'll see data from a state like Thevada that, over the same period of time shows a decrease in accidents.

So what to make of this? And I would dare say there is variabilities here, or there are confounding factors here that are leading to these disparate results that probably have very little to do with marijuana or the law, because when we look at say a state like Colorado that's had a very different result with regard to traffic safety than a state like Nevada, the reality is is they essentially have the same law, they have the same

regulatory scheme. If marijuana was independently linked to this change in traffic safety patterns or driving habits, we should see consistent results across the board. But we're not. We're seeing a wide variation and traffic safety from state to state to state. I think that has a whole lot less to do with marijuana and marijuana law, and a whole lot more with other demographic shifts and changes in driving behavior that are taking place in some states and not

others over these same periods of time. Curious given that it's a federal agency, right the National Highway Safety Traffic Safety Administration. Between the study it did net back in finding no difference between marijuana users and drug free drivers, and then you're describing this twenty fifteen study as sort

of a gold standard. Has the agency been out there and basically being frank about these results, or do they feel a need to pull their punches because they don't want to be risked being seen as promoting the wrong message. That's a great question, Ethan. I'm glad you asked normal and our fact sheets, and in my messaging about cannabis and driving, I cite NITSA probably more than any other source.

I cite their studies, I cite their fact sheets, I cite their website, all of which contain I would dare say, very objective, nonpartisan, non rhetorical, evidence based information about cannabis and driving and accident safety and traffic risk. Yet publicly, I'm really not aware of representatives from NITZA speaking out on this issue whatsoever. Now, let me give you an

anecdote that always stood in my mind. I was asked to testify before legislative hearings in Washington State many years ago, shortly after legalization had passed, and there were hearings that were being held on drug driving, and in particular, this troubling five Dana gram standard that had been enacted part

and parcel with legalization. And I flew into Olympia and I was in the office of the Member of the state Legislature who was the chair of this committee who had called for these hearings, And I said, who else are you bringing into this hearing? And he mentioned, for instance, Marilyn Houstis, who at the time worked at the n I d A and also has probably forgotten more about this issue than nine percent of people know, very well

respected voice in this arena. And he mentioned another researcher who at the time had published several papers on this issue, who at the time was at Yale, but has since passed away, unfortunately. And I told him, I said, that's great, You've got a really good panel of experts here, but who you really ought to have here is someone from NITSA because they've sponsored the research that we're all going to be talking about. And he said, you know what,

I have a great relationship with NITSA. I've worked with agency and a number of other traffic safety issues over the years. We worked with them when we pass seatbelt legislation here in Washington State. I'm gonna take you up on that. I'm going to contact them and we're gonna hold another round of hearings and NITSA will be there. Well, sure enough, a few weeks later, they held another round of hearings, but there was no representative from NITZA testifying.

So I contacted the chair once again and I said, well happened, And he said, you know, Paul, was the strangest thing. I've had good relationships with this agency for years. I've never had any issue with them, but when I talked to them about testifying on this issue, they just showed absolutely no interest. Now, as best I can tell,

that hasn't changed. And it's really unfortunate because you have states and lawmakers in the public all grappling with this issue, and arguably the premier traffic safety agency in this country that actually would theoretically have a lot to say and would be listened to, is largely silo done the issue again, at least publicly. If you want to go into their website and their archives, you will find most of the

information we've discussed today. Yeah, it sounds a lot like National stud on drug abuse, which is only slightly beginning to evolve now. But we exist in order to find what's wrong with drugs. To study drug abuse not drug

use or safety or levels of safety. And it sounds like NITZA was a little bit in the same situation where they would find themselves hearing a headline in which it says NITZA officer explains that marijuana presents relatively low level of risk compared to a B, C, D, E F. And g let me tell you this ethan Nitza study that took place at Virginia Beach, argueing the most important study we have on this issue. It used the very same methodology that was used to develop the initial per

se standards for driving under the infants of alcohol. This study took years to conduct. I remember waiting for so long for the results of this report. Are Remember an interaction I had with Marilyn Houstons at a conference several years earlier where we were debating different studies, and we agreed that I said, when Nitza comes out with the study, I will live or die by the results of that study, because that's really going to tell us what we need to know. And we both agreed on that. I recall

when they dropped that study. They did so on a Friday afternoon at about four thirty in the afternoon, before a three day weekend, before a holiday on Monday. That study was not meant to get any attention. A very interesting So, Paul, what about other types of marijuana and locomotion? Like I remember hearing forever that, well, you know, the risks of marijuana driving are typically overstated, but when it comes to flying, what pilots need and simulators there there's

a really negative result. And then conversely, I was sort of prepping for my conversation when you looked at marijuana and bicycling and it was a little study saying no impact. And then I wonder about these things that show people who are motor boating, you know, having more accidents, and is it because of alcohol or marijuana? But what can you tell us about marijuana's effect on other types of locomotion? Not as much. Again, the focus here has really been

on driving. And when we talk about the skills that are influenced by cannabis, again we're talking about skills that really overlap with some of the skills needed to drive a motor vehicle safely. I'm not a pilot. I would imagine there are a whole lot more and perhaps different skill sets that are necessary to operate or fly a plane safely, then might be to drive a motor vehicle safely. Or perhaps I'm wrong and there's a lot of overlap

and they're very similar. I really don't know. I don't think break latency perhaps would be an issue with flying in a jet airliner for instance, same thing with motor boating. So again, I think those are things that theoretically we

can speculate about, but there's very little data. There was a study, a very famous study you might remember it Ethan that looked at pilots or used a flight simulator study, and it looked at individuals who were users of marijuana but hadn't used marijuana in the previous twenty four hours that showed their performance on a flight simulator was horror

than those individuals who didn't use marijuana at all. And the federal government would trought out this study, probably for the first decade and a half of my work at normal the claim that marijuana could impact your cognitive and behavioral skills for twenty four hours later. But I haven't seen anyone talk about that. That studied a while, and I can say when the time came to replicate those results, they were not replicated. And I haven't heard much about

it since. Would you have any problem knowing that your uber or lift driver was a daily marijuana consumer. I would not. I would have a problem if I was aware or if they notified me of the fact that they had just consumed marijuana. And the prior six minutes

are thirty minutes before picking me up, you know. Paul also thinking about some of the absurdities of the marijuana laws and the number of states where the penalty for marijuana possession was having your driver's license taken away even if you were you know, stopped or arrested just taking a walk on the street or in a park or what have you. And I wonder what's happened with those laws and how do they ever get going in the first place. So those laws are the passage of those

laws predated me. When I first came on board in the mid ninety nineties, we were engaged in a push going from state to state to repeal those laws, and that push has largely been successful. I'm not sure if there are there maybe one or two states that maintain those penalties, with the overwhelming majority of states did not, although in that case the law was linking the punishment for marijuana with driving. This had nothing to do with driving safety. It had to do with way is. The

government was seeking to coerce behavior. Okay, there's an understanding that we live in a society that in most places in this country, one requires a motor vehicle and a license to get from place to place, to get to their job, to get to school, wherever it may be. So punishing a person for engaging certain behaviors by restricting or pulling that license, that is a very significant penalty. So the idea here was the coerce people to change

behavior that they wouldn't otherwise change. The government realized that simply criminalizing marijuana wasn't enough to get people to change their behavior. To threaten to punish people with incarceration or arrest wasn't necessarily enough. But this idea of taking away their license for long periods of time, perhaps that would be enough to get these people to change their behavior.

That was the thinking behind that law. And I'll tell you this, Ethan, it was the thinking behind the initial person say laws that were passed for cannabis and driving. And I can say that with certainty because I was at the conferences, the government sponsored conferences where du Pont and others were there articulating from the podium that these laws weren't about traffic safety, they weren't about impairment, they

were about compelling people to stop using marijuana. You should explain who du Pont is, not the chemical company, but Bob DuPont, Robert DuPont, who was what might have been described as the drugs are that they didn't really call it back to under the gerald Ford administration in the mid seventies, and initially a supporter of cannabis decriminalization, who then took a radical turn in the other direction, claiming with some basis I guess that he was concerned about

increasing analysts and marijuana use, but then became a proponent of essentially drug testing all of American society. Yeah, he was. I won't go any further in describing him. Well, Paul, I'll tell you this has been a fascinating conversation. And the last thing I want to ask you is it sounds like an addition to testifying before state legislatures and other committees. You've also had a fair bit of experience testifying as an expert witness in cases involving marijuana and driving,

and any major takeaways or highlights of those experiences. Yes, don't believe representatives of law enforcement when they publicly say they lack the skills and the tools to identify people driving under the influence of cannabis. I know that every time this discussion comes up in the state, you're going to hear from law enforcement and cops who are going to say that they're gonna put out that narrative. But

let me tell you this. Those same police officers, when they're in a court of law, and I've been in courts of law with them in dozens of cases involving alleged drug driving behavior, when they take the stand and they are asked, officers such and such, what led you to believe that the defendant was under the influence of marijuana? You know what? They don't say, Ethan, They don't say, you know, I gotta be honest with you, we don't really have a good tool to determine if someone's under

the infant of marijuana. No, they take the stand and they say, well, let me tell you all the ways that I know this defendants under the influence of marijuana. They go into their years of training, they go into their skills, they say, we've done a field sobriety tests, we have a toxicology reasult. All of my training led me to be able to identify. I could smell marijuana. I saw the redness in their eyes, they had slurred speech.

I've gone through the ride training that NITZA provide. They will go on and on about their qualifications and their expertise in determining whether someone's under the infants of marijuana. So the fact is police, by their own admission, already have adequate and sufficient tools to make these determinations. That should not be an impediment to changing the legal status

for the responsible possession and use of Canadas. Uh So your takeaway now, your basic harm reduction advisory with marijuana, Do I take it to be if you smoke marijuana, don't drive in the first hour, don't mix with other drugs? What else? Absolutely? And I want to be very clear on this. It Adorable's position is to represent the responsible

cannabis use and the responsible cannabis consumer. And you can go right to our website and find a resolution that was enacted now several decades ago by Normal's Board of Directors about our policy with regard to drug driving and it says right there in black and white, do not operate a motor vehicle or heavy macher ary if one is under the influence of marijuana. So again, our position is very lear on this. We know that the window of impairment is generally most acute during that first hour,

but can extend to about three to four hours. So look, don't drive during that period of time. Don't consume alcohol with cannabis and even consider driving. Be aware of your tolerance, be an educated consumer to understand that the greater the potency, the greater dose, the more acute effect it can have. Understand that even individuals who are habitual users of cannabis still experience a synergistic adverse effect when they use cannabis

with alcohol. Understand that the length of time and type of impairment and duration of impairment and time of onset is going to be very different if one inhales cannabis versus if they take it orally. Again, there's a lot to understand and unpack here, but a lot of this is really just basic social responsibility. All of us drive on the same roads. All of us want safe roads, none of us want impaired drivers on the road, and our goal in changing marijuana policy is did not inadvertently

impact traffic safety. That's not what we're about doing. We want to change the marri WAA laws and strengthen traffic safe and for the people who are gonna smoke marijuana and drive. Nonetheless, are there tips? When I think about I would say, hey, you know, you gotta make that extra effort to look in the rear view inside view mirror. You have to check your speed because you may be

driving at a dangerously slow speed. If something happens in front of you, be aware that you're somewhat altered, and therefore pull over or stop. You know, the little kind of tips for people who are high and know they're high, still want to drive, basically feel safe, have a high level of tolerance, but are not anything else you would add to that. Again, be aware of what the data shows. Be aware that you're more likely to weave if one is in that condition. For instance, be aware that your

reaction time might be compromised, so make sure you're not tailgating. Obviously, Again, be aware of the evidence and try to act accordingly.

One final thing I might say too, is this idea about having a targeted messaging a targeted p S A campaign making people aware of these facts and really being particular who we target, because we know through data that the people most likely to not take this advice, that are most likely to drive behind the wheel are younger drivers, drivers who are less experienced with their use of cannabis,

and also less experienced drivers. So these are the people that potentially are at the greatest risk, and those are the folks that I think our efforts really need to

be targeted toward. And also one way we might be able to reduce that behavior is by not criminalizing use of cannabis in certain places, because I would dare say the reason many young people smoke cannabis behind the wheel and many older people don't is because young people are looking for a place to clandestinely use cannabis and they think they can get in their car and drive out

on a rural road and that way they won't get caught. Well, they may not be caught by their parents, but again they're engaging in activity that creates a greater societal risk for all of us. Paul, on that note, I want to thank you ever so much for sharing your wisdom with me and the listeners to Psychoactive, so thank you and I hope to see you soon. The feelings mutual, Ethan,

thank you for having me and it's been fun. If you're enjoying Psychoactive, please tell your friends about it, or you can write us a review at Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. We love to hear from our listeners. If you'd like to share your own stories comes to ideas, then leave us a message at one eight three three seven seven nine six that's eight three three psycho zero, or you can email us at Psychoactive at protozoa dot com or find me on Twitter at

Ethan natal Man. You can also find contact information in our show notes. Psychoactive is a production of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted by me Ethan Naedelman's produced by Noham Osband and Josh Stain. The executive producers are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus and Darren Aronofsky from Protozoa Pictures, Alex Williams and Matt Frederick from my

Heart Radio and me Ethan Nadelman. Our music is by Ari Blucien and a special thanks to ab Brio, s F Bianca Grimshaw, and Robert bb Next week I'll be talked with the founder of Normal, the marijuana consumer organization. He's Keith Strap and will be focusing on the first generation of marijuana reform. Back in the nineteen seventies, I had been smoking for five or six years, and I couldn't understand why it was considered a crime and why

so many people were having their lives wrecked. To me, it was just a milder version and a safer version of using alcohol. And so I thought, let's start a lobby to legalize marijuana. And in the October of nineteen seventy we farmed Normal, and because of my work with Ralph Nader, we farmed it as a consumer lobby, and the consumer in this case, of course, it's the marijuana smoker. Subscribe to Cycleactive now see it, don't miss it.