This is Scientific Americans.

60 Second Science.

I'm Steve Mursky.

Tomorrow is April 20th.

It's sometimes called a high holiday

because for a lot of people

420 is marijuana day and for them it's kind of a tradition to start lighting up

at 420 p.m. on 420 which led a couple of researchers in Canada to wonder if there was any

evidence for an increase in traffic deaths related to the occasion. They got

access to the United States National Traffic Safety Administration's fatality analysis reporting system, which tracks all public road accidents in which at least one person died.

And they looked at the numbers on 420

from 420 p.m. through midnight, from 1992 through 2016. They also examined

traffic deaths related to accidents on the day one week earlier and the day one week later during the same hours.

The result, a 12% increase in fatalities related to traffic accidents on 420 after 420 p.m. compared with the

control dates and for drivers 20 and under the figure is much higher more than a

30% increase in some states. The researchers in the journal Jama Internal Medicine.

Of course this study does not prove that impaired driving caused by marijuana

consumption was the cause of the higher death rate.

For example, could be the drivers crash while simply trying to light up.

Scientific American has long supported making it easier for researchers to study marijuana's medicinal effects as well as decriminalization in general,

but we're still against driving while intoxicated. So if you're going to be token,

keep those pistons from stroking. The pistons in the engine of the car. Just don't drive.

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