Cannabis and Driving with Dr. Denise Valenti

Dr. Riley Kirk has Dr. Denise Valenti on the podcast to discuss cannabis and driving, cannabis impairment, THC testing, and the challenges of determining whether someone is actually too impaired to drive. They explore why THC levels in the body do not necessarily correspond to impairment and how cannabis can affect vision, peripheral vision, contrast sensitivity, eye movement, balance, and pupil response.

They also discuss the limitations of current roadside cannabis testing compared with alcohol testing, including the challenges of using blood THC levels, cognitive tests, and field sobriety tests to determine cannabis impairment. Dr. Valenti explains her work developing technology that could combine multiple sensory measurements to identify impairment more accurately.

The conversation also explores how dose, tolerance, consumption method, individual differences, medical conditions, and baseline function can influence impairment and why there is no universal rule for how long someone should wait before driving after consuming cannabis. They discuss Drug Recognition Experts, the need for stronger scientific validation and national standards, and the importance of developing impairment-testing technology that is accurate and free from racial bias.

Finally, they discuss cannabis and driving research, harm reduction, the challenges of funding cannabis impairment studies, and why controlled, dose-specific research is needed to better understand the relationship between cannabis, impairment, and road safety.

Chapters

00:00 Cannabis Driving Question

01:08 Denise Valenti Background

03:57 Vision Loss and Driving Research

05:49 Dopamine Retina Link

07:34 Building Impairment Tests

09:38 Why THC Levels Fail

14:39 Courtroom Ready Tech