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Car Accidents & Drugs
From Accident Analysis and Prevention, Volume 29, Number 6, November 1997.
Researchers studied blood samples from 894 patients admitted to two
emergency rooms with injuries from automobile crashes. The presence of
alcohol in blood was associated with more severe injury than in the case of
patients who were alcohol and drug free. Patients who had other drugs in
their blood (including marijuana AND opiates and cocaine) without alcohol
showed injuries no worse on average than patients who had no alcohol and no
drugs.
..."When other relevant variables were considered, these (everything besides
alcohol) drugs were not associated with more severe crashes or greater
injury."
The title of the article is Crash Characteristics and Injuries of Victims
Impaired by Alcohol vs. Illicit Drugs. The study was sponsored by the
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The main author is Pat
Waller of UMTRI, the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.
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