Pubdate: Fri, 19 Jul 2013
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV)
Copyright: 2013 Las Vegas Review-Journal
Contact: http://www.reviewjournal.com/about/print/press/letterstoeditor.html
Website: http://www.lvrj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/233
Author: Steve Sebelius

MEDICAL MARIJUANA USERS STILL WORRY ABOUT DUI

Now that Nevada's Legislature has ended 13 years of ignoring a 
voter-approved constitutional mandate to provide medical marijuana to 
sick people, everything's fine. Right?

Now that state-authorized medical marijuana dispensaries will be 
setting up shop, starting in 2014, getting the drug won't involve 
committing a crime. (Under current law, you can't buy marijuana, even 
with a prescription. You can grow your own plants, but buying the 
seeds is illegal.)

But with dispensaries, the problem's solved. Right? Maybe not. While 
plenty of time was spent this session getting the dispensary bill 
passed, the Legislature ran out of time to consider a separate bill 
that addressed the issue of driving under the influence of marijuana.

Medical marijuana users - if they're not careful - could easily 
violate the DUI standard found in Nevada Revised Statutes 
484C.120(3), which says it's against the law to drive with more than 
2 nanograms of marijuana per milliliter in your blood, or 5 nanograms 
of marijuana metabolite. (A nanogram is a billionth of a gram, and a 
milliliter is 1/1000th of a liter.)

That's a stricter standard, by the way, than exists for cocaine or 
heroin (50 nanograms per milliliter of blood), methamphetamine (100 
nanograms) or LSD (10 nanograms). And there is no exception for 
people who have a prescription for medical marijuana.

That means medical marijuana patients might inadvertently smoke or 
otherwise ingest their medicine, drive a car even hours later and 
potentially be breaking the law.

That bothered Assembly Majority Leader William Horne, D-Las Vegas. 
His Assembly Bill 351 would have forced prosecutors to prove a driver 
was actually impaired by marijuana, rather than just show the 
nanogram standard was exceeded.

"I think we set people up for facing charges that may be ridiculous," 
Horne said.

It's not hypothetical. In 2000, Jessica Williams fell asleep at the 
wheel of her minivan when it ran off Interstate 15 and killed six 
teenagers who were picking up trash as part of a county 
youth-offender work program. She'd smoked marijuana hours before the 
accident. Although a jury determined she wasn't under the influence 
of the drug, Williams is serving a 42year sentence in state prison 
simply because she had more marijuana in her system than was allowed by law.

Law enforcement organizations opposed Horne's bill, which ultimately 
was altered to call for a study of marijuana and driving under the 
influence. But the measure died anyway in the state Senate Health and 
Human Services Committee.

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said he's concerned 
primarily about unsafe drivers, whether they have a prescription or not.

"I'm concerned about public safety. I'm concerned about people 
getting hurt on our roadways," Wolfson said. "I just didn't want to 
agree to something that would be harmful to the prosecution of 
individuals who should be prosecuted."

Wolfson said he, Sheriff Doug Gillespie and U.S. Attorney Dan Bogden 
are going to meet soon to discuss the implementation of medical 
marijuana dispensaries in Nevada and the law enforcement issues they 
raise. (Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, and patients can 
still be arrested, even if they have state authorization to use the drug.)

Horne maintains it's wrong to treat marijuana differently than other 
prescription drugs. Police and prosecutors must prove that legitimate 
users of prescription painkillers, for example, were actually 
impaired to get a conviction. There's no automatic standard for 
driving under the influence of Percocet, Lortab or Oxycontin. 
Regardless of the fairly radical changes in the law regarding 
marijuana in the past 20 years (simple possession used to be a 
felony), it's still considered by some to be a street drug.

"Marijuana still contains that stigma of an illicit narcotic," Horne 
said. "The stigma is still there."

Wolfson readily agrees that there could be a legal problem treating 
medical marijuana differently than other prescription drugs. But 
that's an issue that may be litigated in the future. For now, he 
says, he's most concerned about prosecuting drivers in accidents that 
kill or injure people.

"We're going to take a pragmatic approach to this," he said.

Horne is prevented by term limits from running again for office, so 
it's unclear whether his bill will be brought up in the next session 
of the Legislature. What is clear, however, is that even though 
there's progress in some areas of marijuana law, other areas have yet 
to catch up.

"It seems to be a typical Nevada type of case," he said. "We want to 
take baby steps. We don't want to lead."
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