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Comment by imchillyb | Hacker News Reader

> …2019 on deaths in three areas that have previously been linked to cannabis use but are still poorly understood: motor vehicle accidents, suicide and opioid overdose.

For each cause of death, the researchers compared trends in deaths in states with legal markets with those in states that had comprehensive medical cannabis programs and similar trends in death rates prior to implementing markets…

The study did not link cannabis use with traffic fatalities.

The study linked trends.

Cannabis use was not a factor in those deaths. Not listed as a cause. Not listed as intoxicated at time of accident.

There is a significant difference between the narrative being schlepped versus what data was actually accumulated.

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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8195290/

Findings show that meta-analyses and culpability studies consistently indicate a slightly but significantly increased risk of crashes after acute cannabis use. These risks vary across included study type, crash severity, and method of substance application and measurement. Some studies show a significant correlation between high THC blood concentrations and car crash risk. Most studies do not support this relationship at lower THC concentrations. However, no scientifically supported clear cut-off concentration can be derived from these results. Further research is needed to determine dose-response effects on driving skills combined with measures of neuropsychological functioning related to driving skills and crash risk.

I’m understanding here that cannabis is linked to a higher RISK of crash fatalities not linked to crash fatalities themselves? That’s a very important distinction.

No it’s really not, the same thing is true of alcohol use and car crashes because sober people still crash or lung cancer from smoking etc.

Suppose you have a study of 10k people split 5k:5k between smokers and non smokers. In the non smokers group you get say 10 cases of lung cancer and the smokers group you get 200. It’s really tempting to say the individual smokers got long cancer from smoking, but the base rate isn’t 0 so you don’t know who was screwed either way. Perhaps if nobody smoked in that total population there would have been 19 cases of lung cancer or perhaps 22.

Thus only thing you can say is smoking increases RISK of lung cancer not link it to specific cases.

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