Search Results: driving high (216)

Law Offices of Daniel Rosen
This map shows drugged driving laws by state, as well as which states allow medical marijuana.

By Judy Pokras
The White House has issued a call for every state to make strict drugged driving legislation a priority. What makes this complicated, however, is that for most illicit drugs, including marijuana, there’s no agreed-upon limit that reliably determines impairment.
There are currently 16 states that allow the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, and over a million medical marijuana patients across the country. With three different types of drugged driving laws across the U.S. — and varying state limits for determining impairment from marijuana — depending on which type of law a state uses, a person who is legally allowed to use medical marijuana can be convicted of driving while impaired, even if he or she did not use medical pot on the same day.
This is because THC — the main psychoactive element of marijuana (that causes a person to get high) — can be present in the blood of a heavy pot user for several hours or even days, long after any impairing effects of the drug have gone away. And THC-COOH — a secondary metabolite in marijuana that is formed after a person gets high, and that has no psychoactive effect — is detectable in urine for weeks or even months after past use.

Modern Sophist

Hey, man. Whatever you do, don’t think about this while smoking weed, or it could make your head explode and screw up your entire weekend.

Now that the Colorado Senate has passed a DUI marijuana bill with a per se cutoff point of five nanograms per milliliter (5 ng/ml) of blood, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws has issued one of their nationwide action alerts, reports Michael Roberts at Denver Westword.
With the proposal headed to the Colorado House, where it has a good chance of passage, NORML is doing the right thing. This is an execrable piece of legislation. According to the best research available, there is no correlation between 5 ng/ml and driving impairment in most drivers. In fact, experienced cannabis consumers often drive better than their non-toking peers, according to at least one Australian study.
So far, so good: NORML is standing up for the interests of marijuana consumers in Colorado, as they should.

Weed Posts

A bill establishing a THC blood limit for drivers, after first having appeared to die on the Colorado Senate floor, was called back and passed by a single vote Tuesday afternoon.

The bill, which would establish a per se cannabis “impairment” limit of 5 nanograms per milliliter of blood (no correlation has been shown between this level and actual impairment) now heads to the Republican-controlled House, where its passage appears likely, reports Michael Roberts at Denver Westword.

West Coast Leaf
Crisis? What crisis?

​It was bound to happen once marijuana legalization started looking like a real possibility. The prohibitionists and the drug warriors never go down without a fight; they always find an angle. This time, as at least two states — Colorado and Washington — are looking at legalization measures on November’s ballot, the new bugaboo is driving while high.

Nobody’s sure how to solve the question of when someone is just too stoned to drive, but that doesn’t keep plenty of people from offering “solutions” to the “problem” — which is now graduating from “just” a problem, thanks to sensationalist mainstream press coverage, and becoming an “epidemic” or even a “crisis.”

Graham Lawyer Blog

​Washington state marijuana advocates who are concerned about a cannabis DUI provision in I-502, a legalization bill backed by ACLU offshoot New Approach Washington, last week got some backing from a local medical doctor.

Dr. Gil Mobley, who runs a clinic catering to medical marijuana patients in Federal Way, a suburb of Seattle, said he recently tested several patients and found they passed cognitive tests even with THC concentrations of up to 47 nanograms per milliliter (47 ng/ml), reports Jonathan Martin at The Seattle Times. Nearly four hours after one patient medicated, they still tested at 6 ng/ml, according to Dr. Mobley.
“I told them they’d be legally unable to drive if this law passes,” Dr. Mobley said. “It’s philosophically, morally and legally wrong.”

NORML

​Police made 853,838 arrests in 2010 for marijuana-related offenses, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s annual Uniform Crime Report, released on Monday. The annual arrest total is near the highest ever reported by the agency, and is nearly identical to the total number of cannabis-related arrests reported in 2009.

More than half — 52 percent — of all drug arrests in the United States are now for marijuana, according to the report. An estimated 46 percent of all drug arrests are for offenses related to marijuana possession.

Photo: Ed Andrieski/AP
Represenatives Claire Levy (D-Boulder), left, an d Mark Waller (R-Colorado Springs) go over notes on their marijuana DUI bill in the House Chamber at the Capitol in Denver, Colorado, February 18, 2011

​What constitutes driving while high? The medical marijuana boom in Colorado has led to a debate in the Legislature of driving while under the influence of pot.

Lawmakers are looking at setting a DUI blood-content threshold for marijuana that would make Colorado one of only three states with such a law, reports Ivan Moreno at The Associated Press. According to sponsor Rep. Claire Levy (D-Boulder), it would be one of the most liberal.
Drivers who test positive for five nanograms or more of THC, a psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, would be considered too impaired to drive under the proposal if the substance is present in their blood at the time they’re pulled over, or within two hours.


Photo: Stark County Jail
Donald Duck just wanted some pizza, dude. But he managed to ruffle a few feathers trying to get it.

​I know drunk driving’s no laughing matter, but this still quacks me up. Police in Massillon, Ohio, have arrested 51-year-old Donald Norman Duck after he pulled into a drive through pizzeria and repeatedly bumped the car ahead of him, reports Mike Waterhouse at NewsNet5.

Duck was taken into custody at about 5:25 p.m. Saturday, facing a felony charge of drunk driving and misdemeanor charges of marijuana possession and possession of drug paraphernalia, according to Ben Muessig at AOL News.
According to the driver whose vehicle was repeatedly struck, Donald Duck stuck his head out the car window and shouted, “Sorry dude, something must be wrong with my brakes.”

What is it

Photo: Bruce Chambers/The Orange County Register

​ with pot and big screen TVs this week? Toke of the Town already reported on a Georgia man growing pot in his hollowed out big screen TV. Now, a 22-year-old man was arrested Tuesday evening after customs officers found 112 pounds of marijuana stashed inside a big screen TV he was driving into the United States from Mexico.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers arrested the man, a United States citizen from Chula Vista, California, at the San Ysidro border station, reports KTLA News.

Photo: images.com

​Does marijuana really affect your ability to drive safely? An Orange County, California attorney says there’s evidence to show it doesn’t — and testing for the presence of marijuana doesn’t measure impairment, anyway.

Drunk driving laws today typically define “driving under the influence” as covering both alcohol and drugs, with marijuana included as “drugs.” In most states, the very presence of marijuana in a driver’s blood is either illegal in itself, or is considered proof of impairment.

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