Posted on 07/02/2006 4:39:39 PM PDT by neverdem
Should last week’s joint disqualify a pot smoker from driving today?
A police officer pulls you over at a checkpoint and asks, "Have you been drinking?" Assuming he wants to know whether you have consumed alcohol in the last few hours, such that it might be affecting your ability to drive, you say no. "Not at all?" he asks. Well, you admit, you did have a beer the night before, whereupon he arrests you for driving under the influence.
If that scenario makes sense to you, you should have no problem with Michigan's new policy regarding driving and drug use. As recently interpreted by the state Supreme Court, Michigan law prohibits marijuana smokers from driving long after the drug's psychoactive effects have disappeared. A dozen states have similar policies, and federal drug officials think all of them should, which would in effect revoke or periodically suspend the driver's licenses of more than 25 million Americans.
Michigan law bars someone from driving "if the person has in his or her body any amount of a controlled substance listed in schedule 1," which includes marijuana, THC (marijuana's main active ingredient), and their "derivatives." So even before last week's decision by the Michigan Supreme Court, unimpaired drivers could be arrested with tiny, inconsequential traces of THC in their blood. In contrast with this "zero tolerance" rule, the legal cutoff for drinkers is a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 percent.
The Michigan Supreme Court made the double standard worse by declaring that 11-carboxy-THC, a nonpsychoactive marijuana metabolite that can remain in a person's blood or urine for days or weeks, counts as a forbidden THC "derivative." The upshot is that many regular marijuana smokers can never legally drive in Michigan, whether they're intoxicated or not, while occasional smokers are barred from driving for days after each dose.
"It is irrelevant that an 'ordinary' marijuana smoker allegedly does not know that 11-carboxy-THC could last in his or her body for weeks," the court said. "It is also irrelevant that a person might not be able to drive long after any possible impairment from ingesting marijuana has worn off."
The four judges in the majority bent over backward to reach this bizarre conclusion. They cited several definitions of derivative that could be read to include 11-carboxy-THC, most of which also would render ubiquitous chemicals such as carbon dioxide "controlled substances," meaning that no one would be allowed to drive. They chose the one definition of derivative that avoided this absurd result while still allowing 11-carboxy-THC to be counted as a disqualifying blood contaminant.
The three dissenters noted that such a conclusion is contrary to the law's intent (to protect the public from impaired drivers) and inconsistent with state and federal criteria for Schedule I substances (which are supposed to be psychoactive chemicals or precursors to them). They also argued that the ruling results in an unconstitutionally vague law that invites arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.
Given variations in metabolism and laboratory standards, marijuana smokers can never be sure whether they're legally permitted to drive in Michigan. The statute as interpreted by the Michigan Supreme Court therefore does not give people enough information to know when they are violating it--a basic requirement of due process and the rule of law.
Treating unimpaired drivers as if they were intoxicated is fundamentally unfair, and treating a drug metabolite with no pharmacological action like the drug itself makes no sense if the goal is preventing accidents. But the drug warriors who see Michigan as a model for the nation have other goals in mind.
Proponents (PDF link) of "zero tolerance" laws, such as drug testing consultant J. Michael Walsh and former federal drug czar Robert DuPont, see them as a way of deterring drug use and forcing users into "treatment." If the point is to make the penalties for smoking marijuana more severe, let's have a debate about that, instead of pretending the issue is traffic safety.
© Copyright 2006 by Creators Syndicate Inc.
Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason. His weekly column is distributed by Creators Syndicate. If you'd like to see it in your local newspaper, please e-mail or call the editorial page editor today.
TO ALL:
"Being arbitrarily deprived of your right to drive [without due process - as per this 'law'] clearly infringes on life and liberty."
First, OmahaFields:
Stop chanting "it's the law" for one moment, and try to grasp the concept of intent.
Second, tpaine;
There's nothing intrinsically wrong -- constitutionally -- with licensing one for fitness to drive a car. However, the intent of this perfectly reasonable law has been completely misappropriated. Now I deliberately use the word misappropriated -- it's a sort of stealing that concomitantly involves a breaking of trust.
When applied to money, misappropriation of funds is, itself, ILLEGAL.
Now we all know that licensing has little to do with safety, and everything to do with raising money and tracking your whereabouts, which is really non of the States -- or anyones -- business! It's a shakedown racket. Friendly fascism at best. Click here: >http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Specter_FriendlyFascism_FF.html< Does anybody seriously contend that the founding fathers would have approved of such shenanigans?
One would think there ought to be a law -- or check -- against the misappropriation of the LAW. There is. It's called The Constitution Of The United States Of America.
Keeping in mind that the Intent of the constitution is that -- first and foremost -- it is supposed to apply to ALL the people of the United States(the first three words are "We the people")and not -- arbitrarily -- some people. I offer the following quotes:
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." (James Madison)
It's been said that the law is the rule of reason. But one should ask ones self... by whose reasonning?... and by whose rules?(siznartuf)
1 government enforced moral code
2 government attempt to ensure safety for the citizens
3 leftover racist attack on black jazz musicians and Mexicans
4 other
Intent does not matter. What matters in what is written. To try to interpret the intent and override the words of the law is judicial activism.
It's strange. Have we gone so far afield that judges that follow the constitution (that includes the INTENT of the founding fathers)are considered activist?
Well said. -- Its quite evident that there is a clear intent -- a presumption of freedom, - built into the document.
Also, there is a difference between striking down a law -- as unconstitutional -- and legislating from the bench, that is: reading INTO the constitution rights and privileges that are not granted nor implied.
Yes indeed. -- And reading [in the 5th & 14th amendments], that it is our rights to life, liberty, or property that cannot be deprived; -- pretty well covers any rights not enumerated.
Being arbitrarily deprived of your right to drive [without due process - as per this 'law'] clearly infringes on life and liberty.
There's nothing intrinsically wrong -- constitutionally -- with licensing one for fitness to drive a car.
I'm not saying there is. The licensing of drivers is a reasonable way to regulate fitness. -- The 'law' at issue is an unreasonable, unconstitutional regulation, for the reasons I stated above.
However, the intent of this perfectly reasonable law has been completely misappropriated.
I disagree that the law is at all 'reasonable', as it violates due process. The State has to prove you 'unfit to drive' using due process of law. -- It cannot decree that anyone is 'guilty of unfitness' merely because they smoked a joint last week, or had a drink yesterday.
We have seen precious little in the way of legal change one way or the other. (You may differ in opinion and are welcome to say so.)
My question is this -
If a tally could be made -
would you find more pro cannabis people starting to believe that the war on cannabis users is justified
- or -
more anti cannabis people starting to believe that the war on cannabis users is not justified?
Feel welcome to cause an avalanche of response!
I have no doubt that if this country turned communist tomorrow, RP would have no problem embracing it, as long as the government told him it was OK. But now we're way off topic.
I believe slavery was acceptable to society at one time - else they would have made laws against it.
it's the snowy/slushy road that killed them. Blame the snow plow guy.
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I was thinking of that today. I mean - I had given those WOD types the benefit of a doubt that DUI was the cause of said accident - but - given the road conditions - the accident might just have well been caused by slippery conditions.
It seems that there are so few accidents that can clearly been demonstrated to have been caused by someone REALLY high on marijuana. Most tokers I know are very careful behind the wheel - not speeding, or trying in any way to draw attention to the mellow state they might be in.
Which means it was snowing out, she knew she was going to get behind the wheel, and she still decided to toke up. Should of charged her with first degree murder.
We’ll determine who’s a troll here, thank you.
"Intent does not matter. What matters in what is written. To try to interpret the intent and override the words of the law is judicial activism."
Dear OmahaFields: lets both take a breath and see if we can analyze, together, what you have written.
Please allow me to address the second sentence first.
You write; "What matters(is)what is written."
Are you aware that many of the words that are 'written' -- that you have written for that matter -- may enjoy a totally different or even OPPOSITE meaning in a generation or two?
Many of the words that we use today already HAVE changed in meaning -- as enumerated above. So, you see, we need to know more than just 'the words that are written'. We Need to be able to put the words in the CONTEXT of time and place.
Now lets look at the first sentence.
You write: "Intent does not matter."
Well, it mattered to the founding fathers whom thought it was important enough to enumerate their INTENT in the FIRST PARAGRAPH of the Constitution, as follows:
"We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
So I rest my case on the fact that the founding fathers thought enough about the importance of INTENT; to posit the Intent of the Constitution: at the very beginning of the greatest legal document ever written.
Why do you suppose they did that if 'INTENT does not matter in the law?
Of course it matters.
Is it everything? No it it isn't.
You write: "To try to interpret the intent and override the words of the law..."
No, I am arguing that INTENT matters. Not that intent alone -- especially if the intent is nebulous -- should 'override the words of the law...'
But I would say that those that would say intent does not at all matter are the real Constitutional revisionist.
So, my friend, you are correct when you say "what matters is what is writtin"... and I have used(in context)'what was written' in the United States Constitution, by the founding fathers, to show that intent(in the law) does, indeed, matter.
It certainly mattered to them!
Please give me YOUR interpretation of the following:
'A person, whether licensed or not, shall not operate a vehicle upon a highway or other place open to the general public or generally accessible to motor vehicles, including an area designated for the parking of vehicles, within this state if the person has in his or her body any amount of a controlled substance listed in schedule 1 under section 7212 of the public health code"
If it mattered, they would have put in the right to ride a horse.
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s/The "beast" wants a sample of your blood to see if it can exact a large quantity of your money./s
"If it mattered, they would have put in the right to ride a horse."
LOL
See The Bill Of Rights:>http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/funddocs/billeng.htm<
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
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Right on!
That's what I'm talking about!
The U.S. Federal government is of limited power. Too many have been duped into believing otherwise.
"Of course! Should be an instant felony. Take away their weapons!"
Clarification please, I am almost certain you have said something incredibly stupid.
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