A new study from Swinburne University has found no sign of impairment in medicinal cannabis patients who completed a simulated driving assessment.
The open-label study examined how prescribed medicinal cannabis affected simulated driving performance in 40 patients living with a variety of chronic health conditions.
Each participant underwent a driving simulator assessment both before and after taking a standard dose of their prescribed medication.
The results showed no meaningful decline in driving ability during a highway driving simulation conducted 2.5 hours after consumption, and no lingering effects on driving performance at the five-hour mark.
Lead author Brooke Manning said: “Our main finding was the absence of impairment on a simulated highway driving task. We noted that patients consuming their medication as prescribed drove with slightly greater consistency in highway driving speed and reported a decrease in the perceived effort required to drive.
“It’s crucial to highlight that this study, while revealing, involved a relatively small sample size and its results apply specifically to patients undergoing stable, long-term medical cannabis treatment for refractory conditions.”
Swinburne’s Dr Thomas Arkell, who also contributed to the paper and is currently leading a longitudinal study investigating the cognitive and health effects of medicinal cannabis for chronic pain, said thorough scientific research is needed to keep pace with the increase in prescriptions for the medicine.
“People with chronic pain often say that medical cannabis has a positive impact on their everyday life and helps them to function normally, but we really need the clinical evidence to support this.
“We are specifically focusing on people with chronic pain who have never used cannabis before, and we’re looking at how medical cannabis impacts quality of life and everyday activities, such as driving, over a period of 12 weeks.”
