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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.
Even supposing the majority is correct about the intent, that's one law as versus the many laws in the pro-legalization direction that have been discussed on FR. It remains incorrect to say that overall "actual Americans are enacting laws that are going in the opposite direction."
Who's doing that?
By BenLurkin's logic, we should be.
It's telling when you have to misquote a poster to defend your inanities.
tallhappy didn't say "overall" nor did he imply it. Also, he said, "actual Americans seem to be enacting laws that are going in the opposite direction" -- not "are".
And after examining this Michigan law (which you should have done before you opened your yap), it sure does seem that way to me.
Now, unless you're prepared to do the same with alcohol, I suggest you just go away, troll. You have no idea what you're talking about.
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
"The difference, of course, is that alcohol is a legal substance."
Actually, it seems to me that if they can trace a substantial enough amount of alcohol markers in your blood or bowels, they might use this kind of precedent for marijuana to extend the law to people who may have driven drunk the night before. It'd be a stretch, but the courts almost universally accept such stretches by prosecutors.
So laugh it up about the THC being illegal and those dumb potheads getting theirs, while the new WCTU tries to figure out how to make you pee into a cup instead of taking a blood or breathalyzer test. It'll be you next, Niemöller.
I'm curious - Do you have any first hand experience with the effects of cannabis?
Just what are the effects of cannabis and how long after being intoxicated on cannabis should one wait before getting behind the wheel of an automobile?
Also - what is the ratio of automobile crashes caused by cannabis intoxication compared with the number of automobile crashes caused by alcohol intoxication?
It has been my experience that the level of cannabis intoxication that I enjoy doesn't inebriate me to the level of failing a sobriety test. (Known to many as "buzz".)
That's why I didn't put it inside the quotation marks.
nor did he imply it.
Sure, he did ... and your next quotation supports that reading:
Also, he said, "actual Americans seem to be enacting laws that are going in the opposite direction" -- not "are".
My apologies to tallhappy for the misquote; I was working from memory. But if he was referring only to this single Michigan law, "seem to be" would have been a strange choice of verb ... whereas that verb fits very well an overall claim.
At any rate, it remains the case that many more pro-legalization-directed than anti-legalization-directed laws have been discussed on FR, which suggests that there are more of the former than the latter.
Wrong; as I said, "Those findings, if correct, show only that marijuana impairs the CHRONIC ABuser's judgment long after the "high" appears to be over. The same is true of chronic alcohol abusers".
Anyone notice that the threat of losing your driver's license is being used as a sword over the head of all who do not comply with any dictate of the State? Violation of divorce diktat has been recently discussed.
Driving 'privileges' have become our short hairs.
Your questions have nothing to do with the article or the legislation. I suggest you read both or my excellent summary in post #35.
Whether they are wearing a seat belt, talking on an handphone, drunk, smoking pot, or having sex.
However, if they cause an accident. And especially if there are fatalities.
Throw the book at them.
presuming the reason for the accident was from the above.
"As long as it is in the doper's system that person remains impaired."
And what are you on?
It does? The subject content of posted articles on a public web forum is a reliable indicator of the types of laws being passed by our legislators??
I take back what I said before -- THIS is got to be your dumbest post. Hands down. A new low.
Why did you "put it" anywhere in your response?
No, they don't. They just have to "articulate" that they did.
Um, isn't marijuana use illegal there?
And it is very comforting to know that we may soon have no-knock raids by militarized cops and roadblocks looking for illicit Twinkies.
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