A British TV show conducts a quick experiment with one person driving after drinking alcohol, and driving after smoking a marijuana joint. While not a controlled study isolating as many variables as possible and only using one subject, it goes some way to dispel the myth that driving after marijuana consumption is more dangerous than driving after alcohol consumption.

From what I’ve read on the Internet this finding is not a surprise. Alcohol is a depressant and slows down one’s ability to sample reality, while marijuana is not a depressant and heightens people’s awareness of their surroundings.

However, based on what I’ve read, the primary determinant is one’s experience with marijuana; in other words, people who are new to consuming it should not drive, but people who have smoked it for years and years indicate they have no problem driving according to all the rules of the road.

(Perhaps it should be noted that not all drugs are alike. Even aspirin and ibuprofen, both of which can end headaches are very different. This experiment was between alcohol and marijuana, not alcohol and cocaine, heroin, meth, etc…)