50% of U.S. teens who use marijuana on a regular basis admit to driving while high, according to a new study published in JAMA Network Open.
The reach these findings, researchers looked at data from the 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. "Marijuana can impair cognitive abilities that are critical for safe driving," the study’s lead researcher Dr. Motao Zhu, an associate professor of epidemiology at Ohio State University College of Public Health said. "This is a serious issue that requires our attention." "Definitely, there's more availability of marijuana from legal channels," Zhu said. "Maybe teens feel marijuana isn't as harmful as they thought in the past."