New Report Claims Pedestrian Traffic Deaths Are Up in Legal Weed States, But Key Data Is Missing – News

increased sharply in states that legalized cannabis between 2012 and 2016, despite an overall decline in pedestrian deaths across the rest of the country. In the group’s most recent data, collected over the first half of 2017, the GHSA claims that pedestrian traffic deaths have remained high, suggesting that legal weed could be affecting fatality rates.

“States reported a total of 2,636 pedestrian fatalities for the first six months of 2017,” the report details. “Adjusting the raw data based on past data trends, GHSA projects that pedestrian deaths in 2017 will total 5,984, essentially unchanged from 2016, in which 5,987 people on foot lost their lives in motor vehicle crashes. Pedestrians now account for approximately 16% of all motor vehicle deaths, compared with 11% just a few years ago. “

And while GHSA researchers were quick to hedge any causation assumptions, they also readily hypothesized that the problem could soon get worse as more states enact comprehensive cannabis reform.

“We are not making a definitive, cause-and-effect link to marijuana,” Richard Retting, a traffic safety engineer and author of the study,