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The other day on twitter, my buddies @AshyLBowz (who you should be following by the way), came up with an ingenious twitter trend #WeedOverAlcohol. After that, dozens of twitter stoners listed reasons why weed is better than alcohol. By far the most used answer was something related to driving. I don’t know about you but I’ll take my chances riding with my stoner friends over my drunken friends any day.

Anyway, this should come as a surprise to no one but according to a study, people who smoke are actually a little bit less likely to get into an accident than a sober person.  It’s because they are so cautious and paranoid, duh!

The largest study ever done linking road accidents with drugs and alcohol has found drivers with cannabis in their blood were no more at risk than those who were drug-free. In fact, the findings by a pharmacology team from the University of Adelaide and Transport SA showed drivers who had smoked marijuana were marginally less likely to have an accident than those who were drug-free. A study spokesman, Dr Jason White, said the difference was not great enough to be statistically significant but could be explained by anecdotal evidence that marijuana smokers were more cautious and drove more slowly because of altered time perception. The study of 2,500 accidents, which matched the blood alcohol levels of injured drivers with details from police reports, found drug-free drivers caused the accidents in 53.5 per cent of cases. Injured drivers with a blood-alcohol concentration of more than 0.05 per cent were culpable in nearly 90 per cent of accidents they were involved in. Drivers with cannabis in their blood were less likely to cause an accident, with a culpability rate of 50.6 per cent. The study has policy implications for those who argue drug detection should be anew focus for road safety. Dr White said the study showed the importance of concentrating efforts on alcohol rather than other drugs.

So it’s official, I am not riding in the car with you unless you are stoned.