According to the Washington State Patrol, more drivers are testing positive for pot than this time last year.
Whether or not there are actually more stoned drivers out there remains up in the air, however.
According to WSP spokesman Bob Calkins, the increase in numbers could simply correspond with the increased training around marijuana impairment that troopers have received this year. “We’re testing blood we didn’t test before,” Calkins told the Associated Press.
In the first half of 2013 alone, the state crime lab positively identified cannabis in 745 tests. Out of those, 420 (no joke) were above the state’s blood-THC limit of 5 nanograms of active THC per milliliter of blood. Calkins says that an average year nets about 1,000 positive tests, though the actual levels weren’t always calculated in past years.
But overall, stats show that impaired driving cases haven’t increased in the state in 2013.
