Episode #10 - High Truths on Drugs and Addiction. Edward Wood, Founder and President of DUID Victim Voices. Marijuana drugged driving.

Episode #10 - High Truths on Drugs and Addiction. Edward Wood, Founder and President of DUID Victim Voices. Marijuana drugged driving.

High Truths on Drugs and Addiction

A Kaiser doctor gives a marijuana “medical prescription” to a young man with history of depression and PTSD. As a drugged driver he kills 1 person and injures 5 others. Is the doctor liable? The courts dismissed the case and the poor young man ended his life in suicide.  Edward Wood Ed Wood founded DUID Victim Voices after the death of his 33-year old son Brian at the hands of two drug impaired drivers on marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin.  He has a B.S. in Chemistry from Harvey Mudd College and an MBA from University of Colorado and became the founding CEO of COBE BCT.   Mr. Wood has worked with victims, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, clinicians, drug recognition experts, law enforcement officers, toxicologists, legislators, state officials, and an international list of researchers and other specialists in his quest to increase public knowledge about DUID.  Mr. Wood has four peer-reviewed publications and wrote the 2017 law requiring Colorado to begin collecting and reporting data on drug-impaired driving. www.duidvictimvoices.org Don’t get behind the wheel of a car after ½ – 1 joint of 10 mg edible.  Myth – Marijuana does not impairs driving ability. Marijuana’s ∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) impairs driving skills in a dose-related manner.  The more one consumes, the greater the effect. THC causes a decline in motor performance resulting in delayed reaction times and a reduced ability to stay in one’s own driving lane.  Cognitive functions decline which reduces one’s ability to maintain sustained attention to driving conditions, leads to poor decision-making, impulse control and memory.[i],[ii] The adverse effects of THC on driving safety have been proven with controlled laboratory experiments[iii], driving simulators[iv],[v] and real-world driving experiments[vi]. Myth – Driving under the influence of marijuana is safe because drivers go more slowly and avoid risky situations. This myth is supported by a scene from Cheech and Chong’s movie “Up in Smoke,’ but little else.  Subjects in some driving simulator studies were fairly self-aware of their impairment smoking marijuana and drove more slowly.  But those users were much less successful in compensating for their impairment under emergency driving conditions.  Researchers concluded that simulator studies were only able to show how marijuana users were able to drive after using the drug, rather than how they actually drove in the real world[vii]. Both the California State Patrol and the Colorado State Patrol have repor