States Set Out to Define How High is Too High to Drive

In a dozen medi-pot states, there is a zero-tolerance policy for driving under the influence of any illegal drug, despite medical marijuana being legal in those states, thus the dichotomy that will not likely be resolved with any swift solutions. Many states utilize “per se” laws that have trended towards drivers facing criminal prosecution when any amount of an illegal drug – or even a metabolite – is detected (metabolites are molecules that serve other functions and often don’t even intoxicate).

 

Not surprisingly, medi-pot friendly Colorado is seeking to actually define a legal amount of THC in the bloodstream of a driver; Colorado House Bill 11-1261 would set the technical limit of detection at five nanograms per milliliter of blood (one nanogram is equal to one billionth of a gram). In Ohio and Nevada, only two nanograms of THC are permitted in drivers. In Washington State, House Bill 1648 (HB 1648) would allow a driver to have up to eight nanograms of THC per milliliter.

 

But are even eight nanograms still too low to be held as the legal standard defining drugged driving under the influence of marijuana? Perhaps, as an international study on driving on marijuana issued in 2005 posited, drivers do not pose a crash risk until there are between 10 to 20 nanograms of THC in the bloodstream. 18 to 20 nanograms were determined to be the marijuana intoxication equivalent of the blood-alcohol content of .08, which is the legal limit for driving while drinking in the majority of U.S states.

 

But is driving under the influence of 20 nanograms of THC – or even more – dangerous? Consider that in our 2009 coverage we looked at a report entitled “Marijuana and Actual Driving Performance,” released by the U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in November 1993. The report flat out states marijuana is involved “much less often” than alcohol in vehicular accidents. And in the majority of cases where marijuana was involved in a crash, it’s no surprise to find the driver had been consuming alcohol as well. Included among the eye-opening conclusions of the study: “There is no evidence that marijuana, in current consumption patters, contributes substantially to the rate of vehicular accidents in America.”

  

A study released in May 1998 by Adelaide University (in Southern Australia) found drivers who drank alcohol overestimated their performance quality, whereas those who smoked marijuana underestimated it. The evidence suggested alcohol encourages risky driving whereas pot actually promotes cautious and contemplative driving. Interestingly, the South Australian government made it difficult to obtain copies of the report in the months that followed, due to the controversy generated by the study’s pro-pot implications.

 

Defense attorney George Bianchi told the Seattle Weekly that while it’s hard for prosecutors to prove someone was actually stoned while driving based on THC blood levels, police still arrest many people on suspicion of driving while high on pot. Bianchi supports HB 1648 and thinks eight nanograms are “reasonable” and more importantly, it would prevent prosecutors from introducing carboxy-THC levels in court, a non-psychoactive metabolite in cannabis. In 2010 the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the cannabis metabolite 11-carboxy-THC is not a Schedule 1 substance in a case involving a driver who killed a legally intoxicated pedestrian.

 

Conversely, DUI defense attorney Diego Vargas said he opposes HB 1648’s attempting to define the THC nanogram limit of detection due to the wide range of variables that influence driving under the influence of marijuana and the obstacles in attempting to determine just how stoned – or stone-cold sober – a given driver was at the time of arrest.
resource; HIGHTIMES.COM