Drug Effects and Their Significance for Traffic Safety

摘要

This paper is limited to the discussion of illicit as well as legal, but not-used-as-prescribed psychoactive drugs. The two topics, drug effects and the impact of drugs on traffic safety, have been researched extensively and a detailed review of the literature in both areas is well beyond the scope of this paper. Instead this paper will present information related to both areas mostly in terms of what we know or need to know about the seven National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) drug categories and in terms of the shortcomings of the data that is useful for law enforcement in the context of highway safety and the directions that research should proceed to be more useful for highway safety programs in general, and traffic law enforcement in particular.