4:20

By Rob Tucker

Do you know the significance of April 20 — besides being five days after your taxes are due? I didn't until I came across an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association. 

Each year on April 20 tens of thousands of Americans celebrate marijuana use on an unofficial holiday known alternately as 420, 4:20, 4/20 or weed day. This counterculture holiday isn't as popular as New Year's Eve, but it's making headway. Twenty-five percent of users say that celebrating the 'high holiday' is more important to them than New Year'e Eve and 36% of them plan to take the day off to do so. That percentage is even greater in states where recreational marijuana has been legalized: as many as 41% of users plan to skip work. Who knew!

The most important thing to remember is that marijuana is an intoxicant. The greater the concentration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in the blood, the slower reaction times become and both lane changing and speed fluctuation increase. 

Although when it comes to driving impaired, alcohol is almost six times more likely to be the cause of a car accident, high driving is not safe driving. Canadian researchers compared fatal accidents one week before and one week after April 20 and found a 12% increase in the risk of a fatal crash on weed day. 

So don't use marijuana and drive and be extra careful every year on April 20.

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