Marijuana-impaired drivers are all over the road. Don’t believe me? You should. With medical marijuana legal in 18 states and Washington DC is one of the factors fueling a surge in marijuana use in this country.
Most drivers know that alcohol severely affects their ability to drive. However, many marijuana users claim that driving stoned is not dangerous. Law enforcement officials have to grapple with the issue of stoned drivers more every day. As reported in www.kingmandailyminer.com.
For most driving-under-the-influence-of-marijuana cases, the drug charge is secondary to the charge of driving while impaired. DUI laws typically have three aspects: driving while impaired to the slightest degree, driving under the influence of alcohol and driving under the influence of drugs.
Stoned drivers can pass some field-sobriety tests, however, they cannot pass them all as police put suspected drivers through more thorough tests that look for clues of drug use. I am incredulous that there are those who think their medical marijuana card allows them to use the drug and then operate a vehicle.
Even though Colorado has set a limit for THC in the bloodstream (5 nanograms per milliliter), experts say it is complicated by a number of factors including the patient's metabolism and smoking frequency.
There are few studies on the issue. One 10-year study of more than 8,700 DUI-drug cases in Sweden led researchers to conclude that zero-tolerance policies were probably most effective because they help identify suspects whose concentration-level might have fallen below an arbitrarily set limit while waiting to give a blood sample.
Scientists have found it virtually impossible to agree upon the concentration of a psychoactive substance in blood that leads to impairment in the vast majority of people.
I don't want impaired drivers on the road. The key in my mind is looking at whether somebody really is or is not impaired. If they're impaired, I don't care which drug impaired them.
I welcome your thoughts on the issue. Do you think a zero-tolerance policy is in order? Do you think prosecution should be completely based on field sobriety testing by officers at the time of the incident?