[NBCNEWS] During each shift at her drive-through window, once an hour, Cordelia Cordova sees people rolling joints in their cars. Some blow smoke in her face and smile.Cordova, who lost a 23-year-old niece and her 1-month-old son to a driver who admitted he smoked pot that day, never smiles back. She thinks legal marijuana in Colorado, where she works, is making the problem of drugged driving worse -- and now new research supports her claim.
"Nobody hides it anymore when driving," Cordova said. "They think it's a joke because it's legal. Nobody will take this seriously until somebody loses another loved one."
As medical marijuana sales expanded into 20 states, legal weed was detected in the bodies of dead drivers three times more often during 2010 when compared to those who died behind the wheel in 1999, according to a new study from Columbia University
...contributed $547,852 to the 2008 Obama campaign. Is there a reason universities are among the top financiers of political campaigns? And where do they get all that money they piss away buying politicians?
published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
"The trend suggests that marijuana is playing an increased role in fatal crashes," said Dr. Guohua Li, a co-author and director of the Center for Injury Epidemiology and Prevention at Columbia University Medical Center. The researchers examined data from the federal Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), spanning more than 23,000 drivers killed during that 11-year period.