SMOKING AND DRIVING A BIG NO NO

There's little doubt that smoking pot impairs a person's ability to drive.

It slows reaction time, muddles thinking and disturbs the ability to
judge distances.

But if you ask teenagers, it's not so clear.

"For just in-town driving, it's perfectly fine," said Justin, an
18-year-old from Toronto who didn't want his last name used. "I know
how to handle my pot."

That what the Canadian Public Health Association hopes to combat with
its Pot and Driving campaign, which launched yesterday.

The goal is to get young Canadians - some of the most prolific pot
smokers in the world - to put pot in the same category as alcohol
when it comes to driving.

The campaign poster, to be displayed in schools and libraries across
the country, shows two airline pilots smoking pot, with the caption:
"If it doesn't make sense here, why does it makes sense when you drive."

"We're trying to dispel the myths around pot and driving," said
Elinor Wilson, of the public health group.

A recent Canadian study showed that 15 per cent of senior high school
students had smoked pot and driven in the past year, and those people
were four times as likely as their peers to have been involved in an accident.

The findings don't prove, necessarily, that pot causes accidents.
Researchers can't establish that, because police in Canada don't have
an accurate roadside test for marijuana.

"There's no doubt (pot) is a problem," Toronto Police Supt. Steve
Grant said. "We see the gamut, from someone who rolls through a red
light at a very slow speed, to fatal collisions."