Among the public health concerns commonly cited by opponents of cannabis legalization is a perceived increase in traffic accidents and fatalities. Yet, through examination of five years’ worth of data and multiple research initiatives, the evidence has demonstrated that in fact full legalization has served to decrease fatal traffic accidents.
Research from the American Journal of Public Health set out to evaluate fatalities as a result of vehicle crashes in Washington state and Colorado (the first U.S. states to introduce full cannabis legalization), while comparing them to similar states without legalized cannabis for adult use.
They compared numbers of crash fatalities from the period 2009-2015 in Washington, Colorado and eight control states. Using that data, they compared year-over-year changes in motor vehicle crash fatality rates (per billion vehicle miles traveled) before and after adult-use cannabis legalization. They used a “difference-in-differences” approach to control for underlying time trends and state-specific population, economic, and traffic characteristics.
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