Impact of cannabis and low alcohol concentration on divided attention tasks during driving

Miller, Ralph E.; Brown, Timothy L; Lee, Stella; Tibrewal, Ishaan; Gaffney, Gary; Milavetz, Gary; Hartman, Rebecca L.; Gorelick, David A.; Compton, Richard P.; Huestis, Marilyn A.

doi:10.1080/15389588.2020.1814956

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Data are collected during the routine driving sections at specific events that may be impacted by alcohol and cannabis intoxication (e.g., response to unexpected stimuli to avoid collisions, interactions with stoplights) and data is collected throughout the two controlled scenarios. Car following and divided attention tasks have shown good sensitivity to alcohol ( Freydier et al, 2014 ; Miller et al, 2020 ; Garrisson et al, 2021 ) and cannabis impairment ( Arkell et al, 2020 ; Marcotte et al, 2022 ) in prior studies because these two controlled scenarios test key aspects of driving performance known to be affected by these drugs (e.g., divided/sustained attention, processing speed, psychomotor ability, maintaining lane position, speed, and distance to other cars; Thawer et al, 2022 ). Beyond these specific events and scenarios, additional summary variables of interest are passively collected throughout the drives (see below).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of oral and vaporized cannabis alone, and in combination with alcohol, on driving performance using the STISIM driving simulator: A two-part, double-blind, double-dummy, placebo-controlled, randomized crossover clinical laboratory protocol

et al. 2022

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The legalization of cannabis for medicinal and non-medicinal purposes, and the corresponding increase in diversity of cannabis products, has resulted an urgent need for cannabis regulatory science. Among the most pressing needs is research related to impairment due to cannabis exposure, especially on driving performance. The present project was designed to evaluate the impact of oral and vaporized cannabis, when administered alone or in combination with alcohol, on simulated driving performance (STISIM driving simulator), cognitive/psychomotor ability, and field sobriety performance. Healthy adults will complete two, double-blind, double-dummy, placebo-controlled, randomized crossover clinical laboratory studies, one with oral cannabis (16 men/16 women) and the second with vaporized cannabis (16 men/16 women). In each study, participants will complete seven experimental sessions during which acute doses of placebo or high Δ9-THC cannabis containing 0, 10, or 25 mg Δ9-THC will be administered both alone and in combination with placebo or alcohol-containing beverages (target breath alcohol concentrations, BAC, of 0.0% or 0.05%). A positive control session (i.e., alcohol at target BAC of 0.08% with placebo cannabis) will also be completed. Simulated driving performance tests (available for download; see Methods), field sobriety assessments, subjective drug effect questionnaires, a mobile device impairment test (DRUID app), and collection of whole blood specimens will be completed repeatedly during each session. Linear mixed models will be used to test for differences across experimental conditions and a priori planned comparisons will be used to determine differences between conditions of interest (e.g., cannabis alone vs cannabis with alcohol). This research is designed to extend prior studies of cannabis and alcohol on driving performance by using oral and vaporized routes of cannabis administration. By increasing understanding of impairment associated with co-use of alcohol and these novel forms of cannabis, this research could inform impairment detection standards for cannabis and alcohol and have important implications for law enforcement, public policy decisions regarding accessibility of these substances, and education of the general population who may use cannabis and/or alcohol. Lastly, this manuscript provides interested researchers with access to the simulated driving scenarios and data extraction tools developed for this study as a means of facilitating future cross-study comparisons, which is important given the heterogeneity in methods used across laboratories in prior research.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of oral and vaporized cannabis alone, and in combination with alcohol, on driving performance using the STISIM driving simulator: A two-part, double-blind, double-dummy, placebo-controlled, randomized crossover clinical laboratory protocol

et al. 2022

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“…people diagnosed with attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder), as such samples lack generalisability to the wider population and likely have skewed or specific findings. Studies that used generalised cognitive tests without a context to driving performance were also excluded from the review, as previous research has shown that acute drug use is more impactful on more complex tasks, such as driving (Miller et al, 2020), and thus may not be truly representative of driving impairment. Finally, the previous studies have shown that more frequent users may perceive that the effects of drugs such as cannabis improve their driving (Love, Rowland, et al, 2022).…”

Section: Exclusion Criteriamentioning

confidence: 99%

Alignment of subjective and objective driving impairment following alcohol and cannabis use: A systematic review

Love

Larue

Rowland

2023

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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This systematic review investigated the alignment of objective and subjective driving impairment following alcohol and cannabis administration. Under PRISMA guidelines, a literature search was conducted on various research databases. Studies (N = 20) were included if they were within‐subjects designs, included acute alcohol or cannabis administration, and implemented both objective and subjective measures of driving performance. The review revealed that although the current evidence was limited, there was an apparent (albeit inconsistent) alignment between subjective and objective measures of driving impairment for both alcohol and cannabis conditions. Notably, preliminary evidence suggested that heavier alcohol users may be inclined to underestimate their impairment, whilst cannabis users may overestimate the level of their impairment. However, the current literature was considered limited due to the absence of adequate analytical support, the simplistic (and potentially misleading) approaches to measuring impairment, and the lack of inquiry into how interpersonal differences mediate the subjective‐objective relationship.

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“…While many studies have found statistically-significant effects of cannabis on lateral control (as measured, e.g., by SDLP and reviewed by Bondallaz et al, 2016), there are some exceptions. There are at least five published driving-simulator studies that failed to find any decrease in lateral control from the acute use of cannabis: Anderson et al (2010); Ronen et al (2010); Brands et al, (2019); DiCiano et al (2020); and Miller et al (2020). Anderson et al, Ronen et al and Miller et al did not measure SDLP, but used alternative measures of lane control such as steering angle or lane departures.…”

Section: Cannabis-induced Impairments Are Sometimes Absent and Usuall...mentioning

confidence: 99%

How to read a paper on the short-term impairing effects of cannabis: A selective and critical review of the literature

White

Burns

2022

Drug Science, Policy and Law

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The prosecution of cannabis-presence driving offences (in the absence of any behavioural evidence of impairment) is ultimately based on the assumption that there is a tight causal relationship between positive toxicology for cannabis and impairment. The main purpose of this review is to examine the evidence for that relationship. We show that most experimental studies have failed to elicit statistically-significant cannabis-induced impairments for many of their possible outcomes. And many studies failed to demonstrate any impairment at all in regular users of cannabis (because of the development of tolerance). We argue that selective reporting by researchers, editors and the media has created the false impression that the evidence for cannabis-induced impairment is strong and consistent. Human beings are ‘over-engineered’ for the psychomotor skills required to drive safely. A benchmark level of cannabis-induced impairment is therefore required to distinguish unproblematic from ‘real-world’ impairment. The conventional benchmarks of statistical significance, effect size and BAC-equivalence are shown to be inadequate. However, a benchmark in terms of 30 years of normal cognitive aging has good face validity. The recent use of cannabis is indicated toxicologically by the presence of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in blood or oral fluid. Evidence is provided that most THC-positive drivers are not impaired, and certainly not meaningfully impaired. It follows that the justice of stand-alone cannabis-presence driving offences must be questioned.

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Impact of cannabis and low alcohol concentration on divided attention tasks during driving

Cited by 11 publications

References 18 publications

The effects of oral and vaporized cannabis alone, and in combination with alcohol, on driving performance using the STISIM driving simulator: A two-part, double-blind, double-dummy, placebo-controlled, randomized crossover clinical laboratory protocol

The effects of oral and vaporized cannabis alone, and in combination with alcohol, on driving performance using the STISIM driving simulator: A two-part, double-blind, double-dummy, placebo-controlled, randomized crossover clinical laboratory protocol

Alignment of subjective and objective driving impairment following alcohol and cannabis use: A systematic review

How to read a paper on the short-term impairing effects of cannabis: A selective and critical review of the literature

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