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While stoners can perform simple tasks well while they are high, brain imaging has shown they have to use more of their brain to do so. Reaction times are slower, peripheral vision is decreased and multitasking impeded. As a result, when sudden or surprising things occur to complicate those tasks — such as when a pedestrian steps in front of a car — they cannot respond as well. On the other hand, marijuana users tend to be aware they are impaired and try to compensate for it.

It’s not clear how much marijuana use contributes to crash risk. Some studies have found that marijuana can double crash risk, but others have found virtually no increase.

Traces of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, can be detected in the blood of some habitual marijuana users days or weeks after they last used the drug, making it hard to use blood tests to discern a current level of impairment. Most states haven’t set a THC threshold for impairment, but Colorado and Washington have settled on an intoxication blood level of five parts per billion. There’s no roadside test for THC like those for alcohol, but some states are experimenting with a saliva test.