08 February 2024. Centre for Mental Health and Brain Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn; Institute for Breathing and Sleep (IBAS), Austin Health, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Patients display few changes in driving performance following use of medical cannabis products
Australian researchers assessed simulated driving performance in a cohort of 40 patients authorised to consume cannabis (under Australian law, physicians may authorise cannabis products to patients unresponsive to conventional prescription treatments). Participants completed a baseline driving assessment prior to participation in the study. On the day of the study, patients consumed their typical dose of medical cannabis (cannabis-based extracts or flowers) at the testing site prior to engaging in a battery of driving simulator tests. Researchers identified no significant changes from patients’ baseline driving performance that would indicate psychomotor impairment.
While oil users tended to have higher SDLP [standard deviation in lateral positioning] values, this was stable over time and there was no evidence of impairment for either administration route. Furthermore, lack of changes in speed variability suggests a modest but sustained stabilisation of vehicle control … Study’s authors concluded, “Overall, this semi-naturalistic study suggests that medical cannabis, used as prescribed, has a negligible impact on simulated driving performance”, consistent with several others determining daily cannabis consumers and patients especially, exhibit tolerance to many of cannabis’ psychomotor-influencing effects.