With the decriminalization of cannabis comes a list of questions and concerns over its medical and recreational use.
The duration of impairment from inhaling or ingesting weed has been more anecdotal than scientific, despite society questioning the relationship between alcohol consumption and intoxication.
Last year, a meta-analysis of 80 papers was published. The user can remain impaired for between 3 and 10 hours depending on factors such as how strong the cannabis is.
This information can help inform advisory information given to patients, help recreational users make better decisions, and help update the laws to better reflect the reality of cannabis impairment.
While cannabis can be detected in the body weeks after consumption, it is clear that impairment lasts for a much shorter period of time.
As with alcohol, our legal frameworks need to catch up with that and focus on the interval when users are more of a risk to themselves and others. It is unjust to prosecute on the basis of the presence of marijuana in a person's saliva or blood.
A meta-analysis is a review and analysis of the relevant scientific literature, cross referencing the results to arrive at a finding based on a broader array of methodologies and subjects.
The first meta-analysis of its kind was performed by the team led by Danielle McCartney.
The team studied 1,534 performance outcomes from people who had taken cannabis, looking at how they performed after taking the drug.
How long the impairment lasted depended on a number of factors, including how strong the dose of THC is, whether the cannabis was taken in the form of food, capsule, or drops, and whether the person was an occasional or regular user of cannabis.
The analysis shows that impairment can last up to 10 hours if you consume high amounts of the drug. Four hours is the average duration of impairment when lower doses of the drug are consumed via smoking or vaporization.
If higher doses of the drug are used, the impairment may last up to seven hours.
Regular users of cannabis can build up a tolerance and perform better than occasional users after consuming the same amount. It's hard to say how much cannabis will impair a regular user or how long it will take since they may take higher doses to reach the same level of intoxication as an occasional user.
It was found that impairment is more predictable in occasional cannabis users.
Heavy users are tolerant of the effects of cannabis on driving and cognitive function.
According to the findings, most driving-related skills could come back within five hours.
It is necessary to conduct more research into these time intervals for regular users in order to better understand the effects of the drug. Information can guide legislation once this is done.
"Laws shouldn't be about punishment, but about safety on the road," he said. We need an evidence-based approach to drug-driving laws given that cannabis is legal in many places.
The research was published in a journal.
The previous version of this article was published in April of 2020.
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