New research from Western University suggests close to half of young people surveyed have driven while high on pot.

Many of the youth surveyed said they felt cannabis made them better drivers, says Robert Colonna, 24, a PhD candidate in health promotion at Western.

Others said they would likely drive high in the future and didn’t understand the risks involved in combining driving with cannabis, he said.

Colonna surveyed 426 young Ontario drivers in 2017, a year before recreational cannabis was legalized in Canada. His research was recently published in the Journal of Safety Research.

“I’ve had first-hand experience with people driving impaired and really not understanding why (they did it),” Colonna said. “I thought it was a good opportunity to research.”

He surveyed Ontario drivers aged 18 to 24 and found that 48 per cent admitted to driving while under the influence of cannabis.

“That population is at higher risk for collisions than at any other age due to their immaturity,” Colonna said. “I didn’t think the figure would be that high.

“Some youth actually believed that cannabis actually improved their (driving) performance, which is kind of shocking.”

Drivers aged 21 and younger are prohibited from having an cannabis in their system while driving, London police say on their website.

“Drug-impaired driving is a serious criminal offence that puts you and the public at risk,” police say.

The federal government says on its website that even a small amount of cannabis can affect a driver’s motor skills, slow reaction time and impair shot-term memory and concentration.

Some youth surveyed by Colonna also doubted they could be caught driving high.

“They didn’t feel that the police actually had a way to detect cannabis among them or even if they did, they didn’t believe those claims would stand in court,” he said. “A lot of that has to do with low perceptions of the risk and consequences — likely because they haven’t heard of anyone else who has experienced consequences compared to drinking and driving.”

Colonna said the survey is only the start of his research.

He hopes to find ways to educate youth over the next two years “to prevent driving high or reduce current users who do.

“We need to educate people and use better messaging to promote safe cannabis use,” he said. “ I think studies like these are going to help inform those efforts.”

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