What You Need to Know About Driving Under the Influence of Marijuana
Imagine a time when it was not recognized that drunk driving increased the likelihood of an accident, when there was no consensus on what counts as drunk driving, there was no idea how to measure your condition – laws on drunk driving were necessary or how they were supposed to work. It all happened with alcohol , and it happens again with cannabis.
Cannabis is legal to some extent in most states, and while it is generally accepted that cannabis use has generally increased over the past 10 years, there is no evidence that marijuana use in states where it has been legal has contributed to more car deaths. crashes than in states where it is illegal.
So is it okay to drive if I’m high? I mean, it’s legal, right?
Nope. Alcohol is allowed, but drunk driving is not. Codeine and oxycodone are also legal if prescribed by a doctor, but it is illegal to drive under their influence. Likewise, it is illegal even in places where cannabis is legal for recreational use, and yes, even if you are allowed to use it for medical reasons, drive a car while you are using marijuana. Period.
How do I know if I have a problem? Or is it okay to drive if I am a little older?
Define “slightly higher”. (Anti-drink driving activists may similarly ask you to define “drunk” or “a little drunk.”) The problem is, no one really knows what “impaired health” means when cannabis. You may have seen charts that show, depending on your gender and weight, how many alcoholic drinks you drink over what time could qualify you as disabled or drunk.
But alcohol is unique. It is relatively easy to track how it is absorbed, distributed and excreted from the body (its pharmacokinetics) and how these processes affect your brain and body (its pharmacodynamics), but these processes are much more complex and variable for drugs, including cannabis; we do not know enough at this time to compile a similar table for weeds. The presence of THC, the main psychoactive component of cannabis, in a driver’s body is not a reliable indicator of his disability.
Peer-reviewed studies show that cannabis users wait a minimum of three to four hours after using cannabis before driving; NORML, a non-profit organization working to legalize cannabis, encourages users not to drive if they feel weakened, which, yes, includes feeling “a little pumped up” or “horny.”
How does cannabis affect driving skills?
Does cannabis use impair your ability to drive? Contribute to car accidents? I don’t know, says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. While it is generally agreed that you should not drive if you feel “a little high,” as mentioned above, NHTSA ‘s July 2017 report on “driving with an infringing marijuana” indicates that there are currently nobody has figured out how to drive a car. measure how stoned someone is just sitting on the couch, let alone developing a breathalyzer-like tool that can be used quickly and accurately by law enforcement on the side of the road.
We know from driving simulation research that cannabis use impairs key driving skills, including reaction time, tracking ability, and target detection; cognitive skills such as judgment, expectation, and divided attention; and executive functions such as route planning and risk taking. But they found no clear link between cannabis use and car accidents.
We also know that while people under the influence of alcohol tend to underestimate how weak they are, those under the influence of cannabis tend to overestimate it. Compared to a sober person, a cannabis user usually travels slower, follows other vehicles long distances, and takes less risk. Those who drank alcohol do the opposite: they usually drive faster, travel closer distances, and take more risks. Some researchers, including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), say the behavior of cannabis users suggests they are trying to compensate for how confused they feel. However, these researchers warn that the driver’s deliberate attempts at conservative driving still cannot compensate for the full skill set that cannabis affects. Proponents of cannabis legalization point to research showing that cannabis-affected drivers are only slightly more likely to have accidents than sober ones, and are much less likely to have an accident than those under the influence of alcohol (or alcohol) combined with other drugs, including cannabis).
What happens if you get stopped while high?
If you drink alcohol, if you have an accident or are stopped by law enforcement officers due to erratic driving, you will be tested with a breathalyzer. If this test shows that your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) exceeds the 0.08 limit, you are considered guilty of drunk driving.
Since there is no marker like BAC for cannabis, there is also no breathalyzer-type device with which you can measure how much cannabis you have consumed. However, there are other tests that law enforcement agencies rely on to measure your deterioration if you stop or have an accident. In addition to a field sobriety test, you can take a Drug Impact Assessment (DIE), in which a trained Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) looks for the physiological manifestations of drug use, including blood pressure, pupil size, and red eyes. Depending on where you live, you may not run into DRE; there are only about 8000 of them in the country – you can see the DRE map by state here.
What’s the matter with the DUID (driving under the influence) and cannabis laws?
Five states (Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington) have DUID laws as such , which work in the same way as alcohol laws themselves : If a blood test shows you have more than a specified amount of THC in your blood (like typically 5 nanograms of THC per milliliter of blood), you do not need to take a field sobriety test or DIE to be considered a DUID violation. (Colorado law also sets a threshold of 5 ng / ml THC in the blood, but that threshold is not in itself ; the defendant can successfully claim that he had no abnormalities despite having more than 5 ng / ml in his body. THC).
In addition, 11 states (Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Utah, and Wisconsin) now have zero-tolerance laws that go even further: these states Any a person who is found to have any measurable level of THC or one of its metabolites (a substance necessary for its metabolism) in their blood will be considered a DUID violation. Yes, even though blood sampling is not done at the side of the road, and although THC can remain in the blood for up to 30 days, its concentration in the blood does not correlate with impairment.
But in most states, DUID laws are “effect-based.” To convict you, the prosecutor must prove that the disturbances and / or disabilities you observed during the accident or traffic stop were caused by the intake of cannabis, and not by how much THC was in your blood at the time of testing. To prove their case, prosecutors typically rely on whatever evidence they have at their disposal: field sobriety test results, testimony from a drug recognition expert, and toxicology test results indicating recent use of a controlled substance.
DUI laws vary from state to state, but it is not permitted to drive anywhere if you have a disability, and it is not recommended to do so anywhere, under any circumstances. Inside every steel-reinforced car or truck are the soft bodies of our friends, neighbors and family members, so proceed with caution.