We all know that you can’t drink and drive. Alcohol distorts our reaction time and makes it slower. If you can’t react to the things happening in front of you, the chances of you crashing into something get exponentially higher. We also know that smoking weed makes you high, and that can also impair your driving.
Even 4 hours after you smoke, the effects can still be felt in the body. However, recent research shows that pure CBD strains don’t impair your senses. A recent Dutch study by the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands claims that different cannabis strains can affect your performance in various ways. Click here to read more.
One of the researchers, Johannes Ramaekers, said that everyone should acknowledge that smoking weed should be considered as a health risk to the public. But that also depends on the time when it was used, as well as the strain. For this study, they used around 30 people, and the results are relatively small. But they were good enough to get them featured in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
How Many People Use CBD?
Everyone knows that the Netherlands is a place where marijuana is completely legal. A while ago, it was the only country in the world with laws regarding the marijuana plant. However, because it works so well, other countries started to mimic it.
The United States legalized CBD, and ever since then, around 20 percent of the American public have used it. You might think that it’s just teens that are gathering together and smoking, but the data shows a completely different picture.
Most of the users are adults, and they use topicals, tinctures, oils, and edibles to ease pain, anxiety, discomfort, increase appetite, and help them sleep. The uses are endless, and more and more people are jumping on the train.
Cannabidiol is quite different from THC because it doesn’t have any psychoactive effects. A lot of experts agree that the term non-intoxicating is a much better alternative than non-psychoactive since it doesn’t carry the initial bias that people have towards it. Visit this link for more info https://www.newfoodmagazine.com/news/129312/cbd-reforms/.
What Did The Study Find Out?
This kind of study couldn’t be approved in the United States because it was being conducted in real life. Now, what does that mean exactly? Well, all of the participants were given a THC, CBD, a combination, or a placebo vape before they put their foot on the gas pedal.
They drove right on the highways near Maastricht, and the researchers measured how much they got out from the lines. All of the participants usually smoked twice per week, and the dosages were quite small. Of course, tolerance plays an important role in the measurements, so that’s why the scientists drew blood and saw how high the average sped was, as well as the confidence of the subjects.
They also tested cognitive features, thinking skills, decision making, and memory. All of these combined give an overview of the driver. Here is some more health info if you want to read more. The results were pretty surprising. THC is psychoactive, and it had a similar effect as alcohol.
Also, a combination of both CBD and THC was similar to a blood alcohol content of 0.08 percent. This is illegal in almost all states. On the other hand, the CBD and placebo had no effect on the driving whatsoever. It didn’t impair their driving at all.
The scientists advise people not to drive at least four hours after interacting with THC. If the percentage of THC is less than 0.3 percent, then there won’t be a problem, and the effects on driving are so minimal that they wouldn’t be noticed or felt.
Are There Any Other Perspectives?
The scientific community didn’t get surprised by the results since that’s what they expected. Even though it was a small number of people, the results are the same as in previous studies. Some researchers have pointed out that the study could have done more.
The vaping technique has an effect on how THC and CBD get absorbed in the blood. They could have tried slower smoking because that’s how people usually do it. Additionally, they could have tested exactly how long does it take before all of the effects wear off. However, that’s an experiment for another day.
