The problem is not whether or not something can cause a car accident, it is it's likelihood. First, it is illegal to use your cellphone and drive in most places. To be on certain prescription drugs and be driving. So, all of that is also still illegal.
If you want to look at the statistics, about 12% of driver deaths are linked to marijuana usage. [1[2] Where as almost everyone has and uses cellphones constantly, only about 10% of fatal car accidents (or 25% for teenagers) [3] were caused by cellphones (this in the context of, 3,000 out of 30,000 fatal car accidents annually). Only about .5% of the population are Chronic users of Marijuana (not have tried it), so that's like, 24 times more likely. If we want to look at the figure of people who admit to driving while using their cellphones frequently, it's 25%, and 25% of car accidents are from cellphones, but only 10% of lethal accidents, meaning it's not really that big of a risk. If you look at the figure of people who are high on marijuana while driving, about 3.5 to 4% of drivers annually, then you're 3 times more likely to get in to a car accident and kill someone. It's a figure of about 3,600+ a year, deaths. Even if only two thirds are those are caused directly by marijuana (say, the guy would have gotten in to a crash anyways, because he's an idiot), that's still like, 2,400 deaths a year. Let's even say half, that's 1,800. And that's just from car accidents. In the context of say, 8,000 gun murders annually. Only about 8% of the population are alcoholics, but they make up about 33% of car accidents. 10.9% drove drunk at least once in the year.
Heroin, meth, etc. are all significantly higher than that. In fact, there are about 8,000 heroin overdoses annually. 5,000 from cocaine. [4] That's a gigantic problem.
As for violent crime, 46.7% of violent criminals are considered drug dependent, and 27.7% tested positive for drugs at the time of the arrest. [5] So, half of all violent criminals and murderers, basically. That is, illegal drugs. 37% with alcohol. There's some overlap obviously with illegal drugs and alcohol in their system, but the point is still that drugs make people more violent.
As for Portugal, actually, their violent crime is up. [6][7][8] In most other countries during the same time period (1999 to 2015), crime has gone down. That being said, the spike in violence can't entirely be conflated with an increase in drug use, but they are closely related.
Drugs, objectively, are bad for you. They're bad for the people around you. But I don't think punishment is the key. While I don't believe in being permissive, we shouldn't be punitive ,either. We should treat addiction like a mental health issue, since it more or less is. Whatever you believe, it's obvious that the endless cycle of imprisonment for addicts doesn't stop their behavior. Prison just makes them more adamant on getting their fix as soon as they get out, and the cycle of imprisonment starts all over again. We need to focus on rehabilitation, even mandatory if necessary. But to deny the harm of drugs is a danger to us all, and not fair to the addicts who can't control themselves.
Edited by Manoka, 30 December 2015 - 03:23 AM.
