While science catches up, public policy needs to adapt

Don’t drive high — not even a little, not even a short distance, not ever.

It’s not a hard message. It’s the same message we send with alcohol.

And yet, clearly drivers in Colorado are continuing not to heed that advice. We see it in the streets with people actively smoking marijuana and driving. And now we see it in data gathered by The Denver Post’s David Migoya that shows marijuana-related traffic fatalities are on sharp rise.

The most disturbing part of Migoya’s investigation is that fatalities attributed to drivers impaired with marijuana are growing. In 2013, Colorado drivers tested positive for the drug in about 10 percent of all fatal crashes. By 2016, it was 20 percent. It jumped from 47 fatal crashes statewide in 2013 to 115 in 2016 — a 145 percent increase.

Migoya also found that drivers increasingly are killing people with only marijuana in their systems. Of the drivers involved in fatal crashes in 2014 who tested positive for cannabinoids, or CBD, more than 52…

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