Cannabis
is a commonly used drug in America. In
fact it is the most widely used illicit drug the United States. However the effects cannabis has to average
person ability to drive have gone under studied. It is generally understood that driving under
the influence of drugs and or alcohol hinders ones driving, however most data
on people driving under the influence of cannabis and no other substances as
well was limited. Recently a team of
researches decided to see what the effects just cannabis cause to drivers. Their goal was to investigate the effects of
smoking high-potency cannabis joints on skills related to driving.
Psychomotor
skills were tested in this study through a process called the Critical Tracking
Task. The Critical Tracking Task is a
test of eye-hand coordination and delays in visual motor response. Participants were giving a joystick that they
used to control a car simulation. In the
simulation the participants had to keep their vehicle in the center of the
street and avoid obstacles. The size of
the population for this study was twenty three people with the average age
being twenty four. Participants were
also randomly given placebo joints to be used as a control.
The
results of the experiment showed that smoking cannabis greatly decreased the participant’s
psychomotor skills. Even at lose doses of
THC in the blood of participants psychomotor skills were still noticeably
impaired. The researchers saw that there
was a decrease in activity in the prefrontal cortex and cerebellum which could
explain the decreased motor skills.
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