Blue Cheese vs Brunost – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing blue cheese to brunost, we picked the brunost.
Why?
First, for the unfamiliar, as brunost isn’t necessarily as popular as blue cheese in N. America where most of our readers are:
Brunost, literally “brown cheese” is a traditional Norwegian affair made from aggressively boiling milk, cream, and whey in an iron cauldron. Whereas the blue in blue cheese comes from mold, the brown in brown cheese comes from caramelizing the milk sugars in the cauldron. When we say “cauldron”, yes, there is nowadays mass-produced brunost that is no longer made in something that could be mistaken for a witch’s brew, but the use of cast iron is actually important to the process, and has been the subject of regulatory controversy in Norway; first the cast iron was abandoned, then because that changed the cheese they fortified the product with added iron supplementation, then that was banned, then they reversed it because it affected iron levels in the general population. Nowadays, it is usually made with iron, one way or another.
Ok, so let’s see how they stack up against each other:
In terms of macronutrients, the two cheeses are comparable in fat, but brunost has more carbs—because whereas bacteria (and to a lesser extent, the mold) ate nearly all the carbs in the blue cheese, the caramelization of the milk sugars in brunost meant the result stayed higher in carbs. Both are considered “low GI” foods, but this category is still at least a moderate win for blue cheese.
When it comes to vitamins, brunost is higher in vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, and B12, while blue cheese is higher in vitamin B9. In other words, a clear and easy win for brunost.
In the category of minerals, brunost has more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and potassium. Meanwhile, blue cheese contains more zinc, although we can also mention that blue cheese has about 2x the sodium, which is generally not considered a benefit. The two cheeses are about equal in calcium and selenium. Adding these up makes for another clear and easy win for brunost.
In short, unless you are strongly avoiding [even low-GI foods’] carbs for some reason, brunost wins the day by virtue of its overwhelmingly better vitamin and mineral content.
Still, like most fermented dairy products, both cheeses can be enjoyed in moderation as part of a healthy diet (assuming you don’t have an allergy/intolerance).
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
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White Noise vs Pink Noise
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝I live in a large city and even late at night there is always a bit of background noise. While I am pretty used to it by now, I find I don’t sleep nearly as well in the city as I do in the country. I have seen some stuff about “white noise” generators. I was wondering whether you have any thoughts about the science behind these, and whether it is something I should try out – or maybe I should be trying something completly different.❞
The science says…
❝Our data show that white noise significantly improved sleep based on subjective and objective measurements in subjects complaining of difficulty sleeping due to high levels of environmental noise. This suggests that the application of white noise may be an effective tool in helping to improve sleep in those settings.❞
That said, you might also consider “pink noise”, which is very similar to white noise (having all frequencies normally audible to the human ear), but has greater intensity of lower frequencies, creating a more deep and even sound. While white noise and pink noise are both great at “muting” external sounds like those that have been disturbing your sleep, pink noise may have an advantage in helping to stimulate deep and restful sleep:
❝This study demonstrates that steady pink noise has significant effect on reducing brain wave complexity and inducing more stable sleep time to improve sleep quality of individuals.❞
Source: Pink noise: effect on complexity synchronization of brain activity and sleep consolidation
There may be extra benefits to pink noise, too:
Acoustic Enhancement of Sleep Slow Oscillations and Concomitant Memory Improvement in Older Adults
Rest well!
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What Most People Don’t Know About HIV
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What To Know About HIV This World AIDS Day
Yesterday, we asked 10almonds readers to engage in a hypothetical thought experiment with us, and putting aside for a moment any reason you might feel the scenario wouldn’t apply for you, asked:
❝You have unprotected sex with someone who, afterwards, conversationally mentions their HIV+ status. Do you…❞
…and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses. Of those who responded…
- Just over 60% said “rush to hospital; maybe a treatment is available”
- Just under 20% said “ask them what meds they’re taking (and perhaps whether they’d like a snack)”
- Just over 10% said “despair; life is over”
- Two people said “do the most rigorous washing down there you’ve ever done in your life”
So, what does science say about it?
First, a quick note on terms
- HIV is the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. It does what it says on the tin; it gives humans immunodeficiency. Like many viruses that have become epidemic in humans, it started off in animals (called SIV, because there was no “H” involved yet), which were then eaten by humans, passing the virus to us when it one day mutated to allow that.
- It’s technically two viruses, but that’s beyond the scope of today’s article; for our purposes they are the same. HIV-1 is more virulent and infectious than HIV-2, and is the kind more commonly found in most of the world.
- AIDS is Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, and again, is what it sounds like. When a person is infected with HIV, then without treatment, they will often develop AIDS.
- Technically AIDS itself doesn’t kill people; it just renders people near-defenseless to opportunistic infections (and immune-related diseases such as cancer), since one no longer has a properly working immune system. Common causes of death in AIDS patients include cancer, influenza, pneumonia, and tuberculosis.
People who contract HIV will usually develop AIDS if untreated. Untreated life expectancy is about 11 years.
HIV/AIDS are only a problem for gay people: True or False?
False, unequivocally. Anyone can get HIV and develop AIDS.
The reason it’s more associated with gay men, aside from homophobia, is that since penetrative sex is more likely to pass it on, then if we go with the statistically most likely arrangements here:
- If a man penetrates a woman and passes on HIV, that woman will probably not go on to penetrate someone else
- If a man penetrates a man and passes on HIV, that man could go on to penetrate someone else—and so on
- This means that without any difference in safety practices or promiscuity, it’s going to spread more between men on average, by simple mathematics.
- This is why “men who have sex with men” is the generally-designated higher-risk category.
There is medication to cure HIV/AIDS: True or False?
False so far (though there have been individual case studies of gene treatments that may have cured people—time will tell).
But! There are medications that can prevent HIV from being a life-threatening problem:
- PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) is a medication that one can take in advance of potential exposure to HIV, to guard against it.
- This is a common choice for people aren’t sure about their partners’ statuses, or people working in risky environments.
- PEP (Post-Exposure Prophylaxis) is a medication that one can take after potential exposure to HIV, to “nip it in the bud”.
- Those of you who were rushing to hospital in our poll, this is what you’re rushing there for.
- ARVs (Anti-RetroVirals) are a class of medications (there are different options; we don’t have room to distinguish them) that reduce an HIV+ person’s viral load to undetectable levels.
- Those of you who were asking what meds your partner was taking, these will be those meds. Also, most of them are to be taken in the morning with food, so that’s what the snack was for.
If someone is HIV+, the risk of transmission in unprotected sex is high: True or False?
True or False, with false being the far more likely. It depends on their medications, and this is why you were asking. If someone is on ARVs and their viral load is undetectable (as is usual once someone has been on ARVs for 6 months), they cannot transmit HIV to you.
U=U is not a fancy new emoticon, it means “undetectable = untransmittable”, which is a mathematically true statement in the case of HIV viral loads.
See: NIH | HIV Undetectable=Untransmittable (U=U)
If you’re thinking “still sounds risky to me”, then consider this:
You are safer having unprotected sex with someone who is HIV+ and on ARVs with an undetectable viral load, than you are with someone you are merely assuming is HIV- (perhaps you assume it because “surely this polite blushing young virgin of a straight man won’t give me cooties” etc)
Note that even your monogamous partner of many decades could accidentally contract HIV due to blood contamination in a hospital or an accident at work etc, so it’s good practice to also get tested after things that involve getting stabbed with needles, cut in a risky environment, etc.
If you’re concerned about potential stigma associated with HIV testing, you can get kits online:
CDC | How do I find an HIV self-test?
(these are usually fingerprick blood tests, and you can either see the results yourself at home immediately, or send it in for analysis, depending on the kit)
If I get HIV, I will get AIDS and die: True or False?
False, assuming you get treatment promptly and keep taking it. So those of you who were at “despair; life is over” can breathe a sigh of relief now.
However, if you get HIV, it does currently mean you will have to take those meds every day for the rest of your (no reason it shouldn’t be long and happy) life.
So, HIV is definitely still something to avoid, because it’s not great to have to take a life-saving medication every day. For a little insight as to what that might be like:
HIV.gov | Taking HIV Medication Every Day: Tips & Challenges
(as you’ll see there, there are also longer-lasting injections available instead of daily pulls, but those are much less widely available)
Summary
Some quick take-away notes-in-a-nutshell:
- Getting HIV may have been a death sentence in the 1980s, but nowadays it’s been relegated to the level of “serious inconvenience”.
- Happily, it is very preventable, with PrEP, PEP, and viral loads so low that they can’t transmit HIV, thanks to ARVs.
- Washing will not help, by the way. Safe sex will, though!
- As will celibacy and/or sexual exclusivity in seroconcordant relationships, e.g. you have the same (known! That means actually tested recently! Not just assumed!) HIV status as each other.
- If you do get it, it is very manageable with ARVs, but prevention is better than treatment
- There is no certain cure—yet. Some people (small number of case studies) may have been cured already with gene therapy, but we can’t know for sure yet.
Want to know more? Check out:
Take care!
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Regular Nail Polish vs Gel Nail Polish – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing regular nail polish to gel nail polish, we picked the regular.
Why?
This one’s less about what’s in the bottle, and more about what gets done to your hands:
- Regular nail polish application involves carefully brushing it on.
- Regular nail polish removal involves wiping with acetone.
…whereas:
- Gel nail polish application involves deliberately damaging (roughing up) the nail to allow the color coat to adhere, then when the top coat is applied, holding the nails (and thus, the attached fingers) under a UV light to set it. That UV lamp exposure is very bad for the skin.
- Gel nail polish removal involves soaking in acetone, which is definitely worse than wiping with acetone. Failure to adequately soak it will result in further damage to the nail while trying to get the base coat off the nail that you already deliberately damaged when first applying it.
All in all, regular nail polish isn’t amazing for nail health (healthiest is for nails to be free and naked), but for those of us who like a little bit of color there, regular is a lot better than gel.
Gel nail polish damages the nail itself by necessity, and presents a cumulative skin cancer risk and accelerated aging of the skin, by way of the UV lamp use.
For your interest, here are the specific products that we compared, but the above goes for any of this kind:
Regular nail polish | Gel nail polish
If you’d like to read more about nail health, you might enjoy reading:
The Counterintuitive Dos and Don’ts of Nail Health
Take care!
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War in Ukraine affected wellbeing worldwide, but people’s speed of recovery depended on their personality
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The war in Ukraine has had impacts around the world. Supply chains have been disrupted, the cost of living has soared and we’ve seen the fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II. All of these are in addition to the devastating humanitarian and economic impacts within Ukraine.
Our international team was conducting a global study on wellbeing in the lead up to and after the Russian invasion. This provided a unique opportunity to examine the psychological impact of the outbreak of war.
As we explain in a new study published in Nature Communications, we learned the toll on people’s wellbeing was evident across nations, not just in Ukraine. These effects appear to have been temporary – at least for the average person.
But people with certain psychological vulnerabilities struggled to recover from the shock of the war.
Tracking wellbeing during the outbreak of war
People who took part in our study completed a rigorous “experience-sampling” protocol. Specifically, we asked them to report their momentary wellbeing four times per day for a whole month.
Data collection began in October 2021 and continued throughout 2022. So we had been tracking wellbeing around the world during the weeks surrounding the outbreak of war in February 2022.
We also collected measures of personality, along with various sociodemographic variables (including age, gender, political views). This enabled us to assess whether different people responded differently to the crisis. We could also compare these effects across countries.
Our analyses focused primarily on 1,341 participants living in 17 European countries, excluding Ukraine itself (44,894 experience-sampling reports in total). We also expanded these analyses to capture the experiences of 1,735 people living in 43 countries around the world (54,851 experience-sampling reports) – including in Australia.
A global dip in wellbeing
On February 24 2022, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, there was a sharp decline in wellbeing around the world. There was no decline in the month leading up to the outbreak of war, suggesting the change in wellbeing was not already occurring for some other reason.
However, there was a gradual increase in wellbeing during the month after the Russian invasion, suggestive of a “return to baseline” effect. Such effects are commonly reported in psychological research: situations and events that impact our wellbeing often (though not always) do so temporarily.
Unsurprisingly, people in Europe experienced a sharper dip in wellbeing compared to people living elsewhere around the world. Presumably the war was much more salient for those closest to the conflict, compared to those living on an entirely different continent.
Interestingly, day-to-day fluctuations in wellbeing mirrored the salience of the war on social media as events unfolded. Specifically, wellbeing was lower on days when there were more tweets mentioning Ukraine on Twitter/X.
Our results indicate that, on average, it took around two months for people to return to their baseline levels of wellbeing after the invasion.
Different people, different recoveries
There are strong links between our wellbeing and our individual personalities.
However, the dip in wellbeing following the Russian invasion was fairly uniform across individuals. None of the individual factors assessed in our study, including personality and sociodemographic factors, predicted people’s response to the outbreak of war.
On the other hand, personality did play a role in how quickly people recovered. Individual differences in people’s recovery were linked to a personality trait called “stability”. Stability is a broad dimension of personality that combines low neuroticism with high agreeableness and conscientiousness (three traits from the Big Five personality framework).
Stability is so named because it reflects the stability of one’s overall psychological functioning. This can be illustrated by breaking stability down into its three components:
- low neuroticism describes emotional stability. People low in this trait experience less intense negative emotions such as anxiety, fear or anger, in response to negative events
- high agreeableness describes social stability. People high in this trait are generally more cooperative, kind, and motivated to maintain social harmony
- high conscientiousness describes motivational stability. People high in this trait show more effective patterns of goal-directed self-regulation.
So, our data show that people with less stable personalities fared worse in terms of recovering from the impact the war in Ukraine had on wellbeing.
In a supplementary analysis, we found the effect of stability was driven specifically by neuroticism and agreeableness. The fact that people higher in neuroticism recovered more slowly accords with a wealth of research linking this trait with coping difficulties and poor mental health.
These effects of personality on recovery were stronger than those of sociodemographic factors, such as age, gender or political views, which were not statistically significant.
Overall, our findings suggest that people with certain psychological vulnerabilities will often struggle to recover from the shock of global events such as the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
Luke Smillie, Professor in Personality Psychology, The University of Melbourne
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Tips for Improving Memory
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Q&A with 10almonds Subscribers!
Q: Any tips, other than supplements, for improving memory?
A: So many tips! Certainly enough to do a main feature on, so again maybe we’ll do that in another issue soon. Meanwhile, here are the absolute most critical things for you to know, understand, and apply:
- Memory is a muscle. Not literally, but in the sense that it will grow stronger if exercised and will atrophy if neglected.
- Counterpart of the above: your memory is not a finite vessel. You can’t “fill it up with useless things”, so no need to fear doing so.
- Your memory is the product of countless connections in your brain. The more connections lead to a given memory, the more memorable it will be. What use is this knowledge to you? It means that if you want to remember something, try to make as many connections to it as possible, so:
- Involve as many senses as possible.
- When you learn things, try to learn them in context. Then when your mind has reason to think about the context, it’ll be more likely to remember the thing itself too.
- Rehearsal matters. A lot. This means repeatedly going over something in your head. This brings about the neural equivalent of “muscle memory”.
- Enjoy yourself if you can. The more fun something is, the more you will mentally rehearse it, and the more mental connections you’ll make to it.
Have a question you’d like to see answered here? Hit reply to this email, or use the feedback widget at the bottom! We always love to hear from you
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Driving under the influence of marijuana: An explainer and research roundup
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Update 1: On May 16, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a proposed rule to the Federal Register to downgrade marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug. This is the first step in a lengthy approval process that starts with a 60-day comment period.
Update 2: Two recent research studies were added to the “Studies on marijuana and driving” section of this piece on July 18, 2024.
As marijuana use continues to rise and state-level marijuana legalization sweeps the U.S., researchers and policymakers are grappling with a growing public safety concern: marijuana-impaired driving.
As of April 2023, 38 U.S. states had legalized medical marijuana and 23 had legalized its recreational use, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Recreational or medical marijuana measures are on the ballot in seven states this year.
The issue of marijuana-impaired driving has not been an easy one to tackle because, unlike alcohol, which has well-established thresholds of impairment, the metrics for marijuana’s effects on driving remain rather elusive.
“We don’t have that kind of deep knowledge right now and it’s not because of lack of trying,” says Dr. Guohua Li, professor of epidemiology and the founding director of the Center for Injury Science and Prevention at Columbia University.
“Marijuana is very different from alcohol in important ways,” says Li, who has published several studies on marijuana and driving. “And one of them is that the effect of marijuana on cognitive functions and behaviors is much more unpredictable than alcohol. In general, alcohol is a depressant drug. But marijuana could act on the central nervous system as a depressant, a stimulant, and a hallucinogenic substance.”
Efforts to create a breathalyzer to measure the level of THC, the main psychoactive compound found in the marijuana plant, have largely failed, because “the THC molecule is much bigger than ethanol and its behavior after ingestion is very different from alcohol,” Li says.
Currently, the two most common methods used to measure THC concentration to identify impaired drivers are blood and saliva tests, although there’s ongoing debate about their reliability.
Marijuana, a term interchangeably used with cannabis, is the most commonly used federally illegal drug in the U.S.: 48.2 million people, or about 18% of Americans reported using it at least once in 2019, according to the latest available data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Worldwide, 2.5% of the population consumes marijuana, according to the World Health Organization.
Marijuana is legal in several countries, including Canada, where it was legalized in 2018. Despite state laws legalizing cannabis, it remains illegal at the federal level in the U.S.
As states grapple with the contentious issue of marijuana legalization, the debate is not just about public health, potential tax revenues and economic interests. At the heart of the discussion is also the U.S. criminal justice system.
Marijuana is shown to have medicinal qualities and, compared with substances like alcohol, tobacco, and opioids, it has relatively milder health risks. However, it’s not risk-free, a large body of research has shown.
Marijuana consumption can lead to immediate effects such as impaired muscle coordination and paranoia, as well as longer-term effects on mental health and cognitive functions — and addiction. As its use becomes more widespread, researchers are trying to better understand the potential hazards of marijuana, particularly for younger users whose brains are in critical stages of development.
Marijuana and driving
The use of marijuana among drivers, passengers and pedestrians has increased steadily over the past two decades, Li says.
Compared with the year 2000, the proportion of U.S. drivers on the road who are under the influence of marijuana has increased by several folds, between five to 10 times, based on toxicology testing of people who died in car crashes, Li says.
A 2022 report from the National Transportation Safety Board finds alcohol and cannabis are the two most commonly detected drugs among drivers arrested for impaired driving and fatally injured drivers. Most drivers who tested positive for cannabis also tested positive for another potentially impairing drug.
“Although cannabis and many other drugs have been shown to impair driving performance and are associated with increased crash risk, there is evidence that, relative to alcohol, awareness about the potential dangers of driving after using other drugs is lower,” according to the report.
Indeed, many U.S. adults perceive daily marijuana use or exposure to its smoke safer than tobacco, even though research finds otherwise.
Several studies have demonstrated marijuana’s impact on driving.
Marijuana use can reduce the drivers’ ability to pay attention, particularly when they are performing multiple tasks, research finds. It also slows reaction time and can impair coordination.
“The combination is that you potentially have people who are noticing hazards later, braking slower and potentially not even noticing hazards because of their inability to focus on competing things on the road,” says Dr. Daniel Myran, an assistant professor at the Department of Family Medicine and health services researcher at the University of Ottawa.
In a study published in September in JAMA Network Open, Myran and colleagues find that from 2010 to 2021 the rate of cannabis-involved traffic injuries that led to emergency department visits in Ontario, Canada, increased by 475%, from 0.18 per 1,000 traffic injury emergency department visits in 2010 to 1.01 visits in 2021.
To be sure, cannabis-involved traffic injuries made up a small fraction of all traffic injury-related visits to hospital emergency departments. Out of 947,604 traffic injury emergency department visits, 426 had documented cannabis involvement.
Myran cautions the increase shouldn’t be solely attributed to marijuana legalization. It captures changing societal attitudes toward marijuana and acceptance of cannabis use over time in the lead-up to legalization. In addition, it may reflect an increasing awareness among health care providers about cannabis-impaired driving, and they may be more likely to ask about cannabis use and document it in medical charts, he says.
“When you look at the 475% increase in cannabis involvement in traffic injuries, rather than saying legalizing cannabis has caused the roads to be unsafe and is a public health disaster, it’s that cannabis use appears to be growing as a risk for road traffic injuries and that there seem to be more cannabis impaired drivers on the road,” Myran says. “Legalization may have accelerated this trend. Faced with this increase, we need to think about what are public health measures and different policy interventions to reduce harms from cannabis-impaired driving.”
Setting a legal limit for marijuana-impaired driving
Setting a legal limit for marijuana-impaired driving has not been easy. Countries like Canada and some U.S. states have agreed upon a certain level of THC in blood, usually between 1 to 5 nanograms per milliliter. Still, some studies have found those limits to be weak indicators of cannabis-impaired driving.
When Canada legalized recreational marijuana in 2018, it also passed a law that made it illegal to drive with blood THC levels of more than 2 nanograms. The penalties are more severe for blood THC levels above 5 nanograms. The blood test is done at the police station for people who are pulled over and are deemed to be drug impaired.
In the U.S., five states — Ohio, Illinois, Montana, Washington and Nevada — have “per se laws,” which set a specific amount of THC in the driver’s blood as evidence of impaired driving, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. That limit ranges between 2 and 5 nanograms of THC per milliliter of blood.
Colorado, meanwhile, has a “permissible inference law,” which states that it’s permissible to assume the driver was under the influence if their blood THC level is 5 nanograms per milliliter or higher, according to NCSL.
Twelve states, most which have legalized some form of marijuana of use, have zero tolerance laws for any amount of certain drugs, including THC, in the body.
The remaining states have “driving under the influence of drugs” laws. Among those states, Alabama and Michigan, have oral fluid roadside testing program to screen drivers for marijuana and other drugs, according to NCSL.
In May this year, the U.S. Department of Transportation published a final rule that allows employers to use saliva testing for commercially licensed drivers, including truck drivers. The rule, which went into effect in June, sets the THC limit in saliva at 4 nanograms.
Saliva tests can detect THC for 8 to 24 hours after use, but the tests are not perfect and can results in false positives, leading some scientists to argue against using them in randomly-selected drivers.
In a 2021 report, the U.S. National Institute of Justice, the research and development arm of the Department of Justice, concluded that THC levels in bodily fluids, including blood and saliva “were not reliable indicators of marijuana intoxication.”
Studies on marijuana and driving
Over the past two decades, many studies have shown marijuana use can impair driving. However, discussions about what’s the best way to measure the level of THC in blood or saliva are ongoing. Below, we highlight and summarize several recent studies that address the issue. The studies are listed in order of publication date. We also include a list of related studies and resources to inform your audiences.
State Driving Under the Influence of Drugs Laws
Alexandra N. Origenes, Sarah A. White, Emma E. McGinty and Jon S. Vernick. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, July 2024.Summary: As of January 2023, 33 states and D.C. had a driving under the influence of drugs law for at least one drug other than cannabis. Of those, 29 states and D.C. had a law specifically for driving under the influence of cannabis, in addition to a law for driving under the influence of other drugs. Four states had a driving under the influence of drug laws, excluding cannabis. Meanwhile, 17 states had no law for driving under the influence of drugs, including cannabis. “The 17 states lacking a DUID law that names specific drugs should consider enacting such a law. These states already have expressed their concern — through legislation — with drug-impaired driving. However, failure to name specific drugs is likely to make the laws more difficult to enforce. These laws may force courts and/or law enforcement to rely on potentially subjective indicators of impairment,” the authors write.
Associations between Adolescent Marijuana Use, Driving After Marijuana Use and Recreational Retail Sale in Colorado, USA
Lucas M. Neuroth, et al. Substance Use & Misuse, October 2023.Summary: Researchers use data from four waves (2013, 2015, 2017 and 2019) of the Healthy Kids Colorado Survey, including 47,518 students 15 and older who indicated that they drove. They find 20.3% of students said that they had used marijuana in the past month and 10.5% said they had driven under the influence of marijuana. They find that the availability of recreational marijuana in stores was associated with an increased prevalence of using marijuana one to two times in the past month and driving under the influence of marijuana at least once. “Over the study period, one in ten high school age drivers engaged in [driving after marijuana use], which is concerning given the high risk of motor vehicle-related injury and death arising from impaired driving among adolescents,” the authors write.
Are Blood and Oral Fluid Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and Metabolite Concentrations Related to Impairment? A Meta-Regression Analysis
Danielle McCartney, et al. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, March 2022.Summary: Commonly used THC measurements may not be strong indicators of driving impairment. While there is a relationship between certain biomarkers like blood THC concentrations and impaired driving, this correlation is often weak. The study underscores the need for more nuanced and comprehensive research on this topic, especially as cannabis usage becomes more widespread and legally accepted.
The Effects of Cannabis and Alcohol on Driving Performance and Driver Behaviour: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Sarah M. Simmons, Jeff K. Caird, Frances Sterzer and Mark Asbridge. Addiction, January 2022.Summary: This meta-analysis of experimental driving studies, including driving simulations, confirms that cannabis impairs driving performance, contrary to some beliefs that it might enhance driving abilities. Cannabis affects lateral control and speed — typically increasing lane excursions while reducing speed. The combination of alcohol and marijuana appears worse than either alone, challenging the idea that they cancel each other out.
Cannabis Legalization and Detection of Tetrahydrocannabinol in Injured Drivers
Jeffrey R. Brubacher, et al. The New England Journal of Medicine, January 2022.Summary: Following the legalization of recreational marijuana in Canada, there was a notable increase in injured drivers testing positive for THC, especially among those 50 years of age or older. This rise in cannabis-related driving incidents occurred even with new traffic laws aiming to deter cannabis-impaired driving. This uptick began before legalization became official, possibly due to perceptions that cannabis use was soon-to-be legal or illegal but not enforced. The data suggests that while legalization has broad societal impacts, more comprehensive strategies are needed to deter driving under the influence of cannabis and raise public awareness about its risks.
Cannabis and Driving
Godfrey D. Pearlson, Michael C. Stevens and Deepak Cyril D’Souza. Frontiers in Psychiatry, September 2021.Summary: Cannabis-impaired driving is a growing public health concern, and studies show that such drivers are more likely to be involved in car crashes, according to this review paper. Drivers are less affected by cannabis than they are by alcohol or cocaine, but the problem is expected to escalate with increasing cannabis legalization and use. Unlike alcohol, THC’s properties make it challenging to determine direct impairment levels from testing results. Current roadside tests lack precision in detecting genuine cannabis-impaired drivers, leading to potential wrongful convictions. Moreover, there is a pressing need for research on the combined effects of alcohol and cannabis on driving, as well as the impact of emerging popular forms of cannabis, like concentrates and edibles. The authors recommend public awareness campaigns about the dangers of driving under the influence of cannabis, similar to those against drunk driving, to address misconceptions. Policymakers should prioritize science-based decisions and encourage further research in this domain.
Demographic And Policy-Based Differences in Behaviors And Attitudes Towards Driving After Marijuana Use: An Analysis of the 2013–2017 Traffic Safety Culture Index
Marco H. Benedetti, et al. BMC Research Notes, June 2021.Summary: The study, based on a U.S. survey, finds younger, low-income, low-education and male participants were more tolerant of driving after marijuana consumption. Notably, those in states that legalized medical marijuana reported driving after use more frequently, aligning with studies indicating a higher prevalence of THC detection in drivers from these states. Overall, while the majority perceive driving after marijuana use as dangerous, not all research agrees on its impairment effects. Existing studies highlight that marijuana impacts motor skills and executive functions, yet its direct correlation with crash risk remains debated, given the variations in individual tolerance and how long THC remains in the system.
Driving Under the Influence of Cannabis: A Framework for Future Policy
Robert M. Chow, et al.Anesthesia & Analgesia, June 2019.Summary: The study presents a conceptual framework focusing on four main domains: legalization, driving under the influence of cannabis, driver impairment, and motor vehicle accidents. With the growing legalization of cannabis, there’s an anticipated rise in cannabis-impaired driving cases. The authors group marijuana users into infrequent users who show significant impairment with increased THC blood levels, chronic users with minimal impairment despite high THC levels, and those with consistent psychomotor deficits. Current challenges lie in the lack of standardized regulation for drivers influenced by cannabis, primarily because of state-to-state variability and the absence of a federal statutory limit for blood THC levels. European nations, however, have established thresholds for blood THC levels, ranging from 0.5 to 50.0 micrograms per liter depending on whether blood or blood serum are tested. The authors suggest the combined use of alcohol and THC blood tests with a psychomotor evaluation by a trained professional to determine impairment levels. The paper stresses the importance of creating a structured policy framework, given the rising acceptance and use of marijuana in society.
Additional research
Cannabis-Involved Traffic Injury Emergency Department Visits After Cannabis Legalization and Commercialization
Daniel T. Myran, et al. JAMA Network Open, September 2023.Driving Performance and Cannabis Users’ Perception of Safety: A Randomized Clinical Trial
Thomas D. Marcotte, et al. JAMA Psychiatry, January 2022.Medicinal Cannabis and Driving: The Intersection of Health and Road Safety Policy
Daniel Perkins, et al. International Journal of Drug Policy, November 2021.Prevalence of Marijuana Use Among Trauma Patients Before and After Legalization of Medical Marijuana: The Arizona Experience
Michael Levine, et al. Substance Abuse, July 2021.Self-Reported Driving After Marijuana Use in Association With Medical And Recreational Marijuana Policies
Marco H. Benedetti, et al. International Journal of Drug Policy, June 2021.Cannabis and Driving Ability
Eric L. Sevigny. Current Opinion in Psychology, April 2021.The Failings of per se Limits to Detect Cannabis-Induced Driving Impairment: Results from a Simulated Driving Study
Thomas R. Arkell, et al. Traffic Injury Prevention, February 2021.Risky Driving Behaviors of Drivers Who Use Alcohol and Cannabis
Tara Kelley-Baker, et al. Transportation Research Record, January 2021.Direct and Indirect Effects of Marijuana Use on the Risk of Fatal 2-Vehicle Crash Initiation
Stanford Chihuri and Guohua Li. Injury Epidemiology, September 2020Cannabis-Impaired Driving: Evidence and the Role of Toxicology Testing
Edward C. Wood and Robert L. Dupont. Cannabis in Medicine, July 2020.Association of Recreational Cannabis Laws in Colorado and Washington State With Changes in Traffic Fatalities, 2005-2017
Julian Santaella-Tenorio, et al. JAMA Internal Medicine, June 2020.Marijuana Decriminalization, Medical Marijuana Laws, and Fatal Traffic Crashes in US Cities, 2010–2017
Amanda Cook, Gregory Leung and Rhet A. Smith. American Journal of Public Health, February 2020.Cannabis Use in Older Drivers in Colorado: The LongROAD Study
Carolyn G. DiGuiseppi, et al. Accident Analysis & Prevention, November 2019.Crash Fatality Rates After Recreational Marijuana Legalization in Washington and Colorado
Jayson D. Aydelotte, et al. American Journal of Public Health, August 2017.Marijuana-Impaired Driving: A Report to Congress
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, July 2017Interaction of Marijuana And Alcohol on Fatal Motor Vehicle Crash Risk: A Case–Control Study
Stanford Chihuri, Guohua Li and Qixuan Chen. Injury Epidemiology, March 2017.US Traffic Fatalities, 1985–2014, and Their Relationship to Medical Marijuana Laws
Julian Santaella-Tenorio, et al. American Journal of Public Health, February 2017.Delays in DUI Blood Testing: Impact on Cannabis DUI Assessments
Ed Wood, Ashley Brooks-Russell and Phillip Drum. Traffic Injury Prevention, June 2015.Establishing Legal Limits for Driving Under the Influence of Marijuana
Kristin Wong, Joanne E. Brady and Guohua Li. Injury Epidemiology, October 2014.Cannabis Effects on Driving Skills
Rebecca L. Hartman and Marilyn A. Huestis. Clinical Chemistry, March 2014.Acute Cannabis Consumption And Motor Vehicle Collision Risk: Systematic Review of Observational Studies and Meta-Analysis
Mark Asbridge, Jill A. Hayden and Jennifer L. Cartwright. The BMJ, February 2012.Resources for your audiences
The following resources include explainers from federal agencies and national organizations. You’re free to use images and graphics from federal agencies.
- CDC’s main marijuana page.
- CDC’s marijuana data and statistics.
- Marijuana Drug Facts from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
- Health Effects of Marijuana from the CDC.
- Learn About Marijuana Risks from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
- Marijuana and Lung Health from the American Lung Association.
- Substance Use Disorder 101 from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
- What You Need To Know About Marijuana Use and Driving from the CDC.
- Does marijuana use affect driving? from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
- Drug-Impaired Driving from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
This article first appeared on The Journalist’s Resource and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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