Want to know more about cannabis and driving? Ask your budtender.

CDOT has partnered with Learn Brands, a subscription-based online budtender education platform, to launch an interactive cannabis-impaired driving safety course. 

Why budtenders? 

Budtenders are a trusted source of information for cannabis consumers, and they get lots of questions. Educating budtenders is one of the best and most efficient ways to educate cannabis consumers on the laws and dangers of driving high. And having accurate information is key. 

The course — a series of educational lessons and quizzes — provides cannabis industry workers with the necessary tools to persuade consumers to make smart choices, find alternatives to driving high, and understand reasons why they should. 

It also talks about pressing issues that aren’t talked about enough, like multi-substance impairment. A large percentage of DUIs involving cannabis also involved other substances, most commonly alcohol. 

What is Learn Brands?

Cannabis companies create content that markets and educates dispensary workers about their products. They then pay Learn Brands to place that content on their platform. Dispensaries then subscribe to the Learn Brands platform and encourage or mandate their employees to use the service.

The platform also has free, public safety education content available to all, like the CDOT course. CDOT plans to work with Learn Brands and dispensary companies who subscribe to the service to encourage all their employees to take the course. They will then earn a certificate of completion.  

What’s to learn?  

A few key takeaways from the course are: 

• You can get a DUI if you’re impaired by marijuana.
• Cannabis impairs brain and physiological functions critical to driving, like reaction time, decision-making and peripheral vision. 
• This is a very real and serious issue — data from law enforcement agencies show that people are dying on Colorado roads due to cannabis and multi-drug impairment. 
• Strategies to avoid putting yourself or others at risk: take a rideshare, just stay at home and know how long you need to wait after consuming to drive. 

To access CDOT’s cannabis-impaired driving course on Learn Brands, visit learnbrands.com to log in or sign up for an account.