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Driving while impaired is a legitimate public safety concern, and preventing impaired driving must be part of any serious conversation about cannabis safety.

For medical cannabis advocates, roadway safety and patient protections should not be competing goals. Patients should understand when cannabis may affect their ability to drive and have the information they need to make responsible decisions. At the same time, public policy should distinguish between responsible medical cannabis use and driving while impaired.

Cannabis can affect reaction time, attention, coordination, judgment, and other abilities needed to drive safely. At the same time, the presence or concentration of THC does not provide the same straightforward measure of impairment that blood alcohol concentration provides for alcohol.

That distinction is especially important for medical cannabis patients. Cannabis metabolites can remain detectable after use, and people can respond differently depending on dose, product, route of administration, tolerance, other substances, and individual factors. Protecting the public therefore requires more than detecting whether someone has consumed cannabis. We need better education, research, training, and ways to recognize and prevent actual impairment.

The Roadwise Award recognizes campaigns, training programs, tools, research-based programs, and public service initiatives working to improve our understanding of cannabis impairment, driving risk, prevention, enforcement, transportation alternatives, and responsible decision-making.

The 2026 nominees are Chesapeake Region Safety Council and the Colorado Department of Transportation.

Learn more about the Roadwise Award!

MEET THE ROADWISE AWARD NOMINEES

Chesapeake Region Safety Council

The Chesapeake Region Safety Council takes impairment education out of the textbook and puts it into a real-world learning environment. Its Impairment Education and Recognition training brings together cannabis consumers, law enforcement professionals, employers, safety professionals, and emerging technologies to examine what impairment actually looks like.

Participants learn about cannabis products, dosage, routes of administration, medical use, and impairment while observing assessments conducted with volunteer consumers. The program creates something that is often missing from conversations about cannabis and driving: an opportunity to distinguish cannabis use from observable impairment and learn from both consumers and the professionals responsible for recognizing safety risks.

Colorado Department of Transportation

The Colorado Department of Transportation has spent years building public education around cannabis and driving in one of the first states to create a regulated adult use cannabis market. Its work includes consumer education, cannabis impaired driving research and data, public awareness campaigns, resources for cannabis businesses, and training designed to reach people before they make the decision to drive.

That approach recognizes that preventing impaired driving requires more than warnings and penalties. People need credible information about impairment, combining cannabis with other substances, planning transportation, and understanding that legal or medical cannabis use does not make it safe to drive while impaired.

Safer Roads & Fair Cannabis Policy

Cannabis impaired driving is an area where getting the science right matters enormously.

If we minimize impairment, we fail to protect patients, drivers, passengers, pedestrians, and communities. If we treat the presence of cannabis as proof of impairment, we risk creating policies that punish responsible consumers and medical cannabis patients without actually making roads safer. The better path is to keep improving how we educate people, recognize impairment, evaluate risk, train professionals, and give consumers practical alternatives to getting behind the wheel when they may be impaired.

The nominees for the 2026 Roadwise Award demonstrate two important parts of that work: creating opportunities for professionals and cannabis consumers to better understand what impairment actually looks like, and developing public education that helps people make safer decisions before they drive. Together, their work reflects the principle behind the Roadwise Award: roadway safety and medical cannabis access can be compatible goals when policy is grounded in evidence, education, prevention, and responsible decision-making.

Cast your vote for the 2026 Roadwise Award through October 25.