Just noting there’s a difference between THC in your system and THC in your blood. THC leaves the bloodstream after your high. Goes into fat cells and other areas to be broken down and processed (up to a month) later. Having it in the bloodstream after an accident means they were intoxicated at the time according to science. Whether their CB1 receptors were letting it through is another matter. I can smoke a lot of weed and not “feel high” yet I would test off the charts on this test.
For drunk drivers it’s rather easy to assess whether someone is impaired. With marijuana it’s not. So until we have a valid method of testing if someone is “too stoned to drive” we have to push back on any attempt to classify marijuana users as ineligible to drive.
It should be the other way around. If there’s no good way to test, then no driving with any THC in blood.
so we're all going to subject ourselves to blood sampling to get behind the wheel?
Maybe just not legalize THC if there is no easy way to test if THC users are intoxicated.
And punish illegal users regardless of intoxication level. Medical users should just abstain from driving while in it.
> I can smoke a lot of weed and not “feel high” yet I would test off the charts on this test.
> With marijuana it’s not. So until we have a valid method of testing if someone is “too stoned to drive” we have to push back on any attempt to classify marijuana users as ineligible to drive.
I agree. As someone who regularly consumes 250mg of edibles daily at a minimum, I’m sure my levels would be off the charts on a constant basis, even when sober. With the tolerance I currently have, it’d take a ridiculous amount to put me into a state where I felt driving wasn’t safe.
There are individuals that have a high tolerance of alcohol.
Thankfully society didn’t make exceptions. Eventually.
I see THC taking the same, slow, tortured approach.
Sadly, I tend to agree with you.
Anecdote, I'm a user, by choice, and by habit/addiction. I was first exposed to it through, oddly enough, martial arts as a young teen. The punk rock scene of the 90s didn't help much either. Both me and my ex-wife were what you would call "techno-hippies". We would smoke as much weed as we could, and I would code and she would do her thing (she was a biologist so I have no clue, something genes). We had a rhythm and we liked the high grade one hit and you're good kind of marijuana.
When 2018 came around, The Farm Bill (tm) passed and it loosened the terms of what "hemp" was. The budding cannabis industry saw this as an opportunity to mess with genetics. They discovered that if you harvest early, immediately freeze it, D9-THC doesn't convert from it's precursor - THC-A. So then they started shipping "hemp" in the form of THC-A all over the states. All you have to do to "finish" the process is to decarboxylate it into D9-THC. However, there's also D8-THC which doesn't get you nearly as "high" and only lasts minutes. It, too, can be frozen to prevent it from converting from it's precursor - THC-A... What?!? So you really don't know whether it's D8 or D9 from the dispensary (and neither do they) and the quality is all over the charts.
I think this is why it's affecting driving so much. People who are used to the smoke shop D8 weed get their hands on some real D9 and it blows their minds.
God I wish we had a breathalyzer test for D9-THC. Without it, it's going to get legislated to the point where you're on the disabled "can't drive or operate any machinery, ever" list. You already give up your right to own a gun when you sign up for medical marijuana. (and when buying one, it asks you if you use...)
I'm definitely for making the roads safer, but I'm also pro-rights and liberties so this one is hard for me. Yes, there should be some legislation around marijuana, no it shouldn't be a schedule I-III but looked at like hops and barley. Tax the shit out of it. Like you do cigarettes. Don't prevent me from driving because I smoked a cigarette.
Right. Taxing could (and should) fund the research needed for better testing.
Also put a stop some of the bad actors and bad behaviors of growers (all night daylight…).
> So until we have a valid method of testing if someone is “too stoned to drive” we have to push back on any attempt to classify marijuana users as ineligible to drive.
You’re not really going to win anybody over to the legalization side when you basically say that people can consume as much THC as they want and drive without any penalties because of testing limitations.
On the contrary: we should test for the actual issue (impairment) rather than an arbitrary number.
Blood test is a reliable indicator: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/judicial/resources/highwa...
That link doesn't appear to say that blood tests are reliable
Literally in the summary
> While blood alcohol content (BAC) level represents an accurate measurement of alcohol impairment, the presence of THC in a driver’s body has not been shown to be a predictable measure of cannabis impairment.
But further on
> Because THC in the blood can result from both recent as well as past use, impairment cannot be inferred from blood levels.
That’s not the relevant bit. A blood test detects recent use of THC.
Which other, less invasive methods cannot. Like alcohol, impairment is highly individual and so we set a threshold.
It is not a reliable indicator of recent use though, since it can also indicate past use.
I agree we need to set a threshold for impairment. I just want that to be measured reliably so that people who had a brownie last weekend aren't getting in trouble.
Driving isn’t a right. No matter how steeped the US is in car culture, it’s important not to lose sight of this.
Now blood tests show a 12-24 hour window of usage. Much tighter than the 2 to 30 days of other tests. In terms of window of time, that’s essentially good-enough.
Of course anyone who consumes cannabis has a strong desire for a tighter and more accurate test, but you’re really fighting against growing masses of irresponsible users.
If the problem is truly wide-spread like alcohol was (and still is), it’s just a matter of time before states or feds push for a good-enough (for the rest of us) solution.
THC leaves the bloodstream within 24 hours just to be clear.
I know this is a giant hairball and the downvotes and passionate discussion is why I said what I said but in the end, until we have a breathalyzer for THC, it is what it is.
So you’re advocating that a cop makes a subjective judgement about your impairment level? I don’t see how anyone could find an issue with that.
Then develop more empirical measures of impairment. A device that tests response time, etc. Doctors have been doing that with a hammer to the knee for decades, optometrists do it with a headset that flashes lights where you have to press a clicker, etc. - we have the tools.
They are doing this every day for drunk drivers already.
They also frequently arrest people who have not had any alcohol or drugs at all for being "drunk". It happens far too often.
Just one example of many:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFuVdlKD00s
Impairment is somewhat orthogonal to drug or alcohol intoxication. It's not safe to drive if you've been awake for 24+ hours, for example, or have some other medical condition (hypoglycemia, whatever) that impairs your ability to drive safely.
This has nothing to do with "intoxication" or sleep deprivation, or medical conditions. Some police will lie and charge people with "DUI" when there is zero justification, and they ruin lives because too many of them are sadistic assholes. It's in epidemic in Tennessee and other parts of the country, but it really could happen anywhere to anyone. Police unions are a problem, and taxpayers pay for the litigation when someone actually fights back against false charges.
So what? This line of argument can be used to dismiss essentially any crime, because police can always lie about whatever the particular crime is. It's not a principled reason not to have laws or enforce them.
Glad to know you're perfectly fine with lives being ruined for no reason at all.
And field sobriety tests are routinely challenged in court because they aren’t objective and at best, they’re taken into consideration with other things like BAC.
my ex-girlfriend challenged this in court last year and lost. She was pulled over coming home and forced to take a field sobriety test. She was angry and was refusing, trying to explain that she just got off work. They arrested her for DUI. Called me to get the vehicle with her crying in the squad car. I bailed her out of jail for $500 two days later. Her BAC was 0.
Her attitude when asked to perform the field sobriety test was taken as a refusal and she lost her license, now with a DUI on her record.
We all like to think that these methods work, and they do most of the time, and yet there still are cases where a normal person is subjected to them and they deem them "unworthy" to pass.
She needs to hire a lawyer, this happens far too often.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFuVdlKD00s
We hired the best lawyer in town. Spent $20,000.
Field. Sobriety. Tests.
"Say your ABC's backwards starting from Z"
Given that driving isn’t a right, there’s more leeway to be more strict.
I used to bike-ride a lot, but the number unaccountable drivers and the increase in dispensaries in the NYC tri-state gave me pause.
Fun fact, you can be arrested for DUI on a bicycle, and it counts the same as if you were driving a car.