Pubdate: Thu, 27 Aug 2015
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
Copyright: 2015 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc
Contact:  http://www.philly.com/inquirer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/340
Authors: Josh Benson and Clarissa Cooper Clarissa Cooper is a 
Reynolds Fellow. NEWS21
Series: America's Weed Rush an Investigation into the Legalization of 
Marijuana
Note: Fifth in a series

Special Report Legalizing Marijuana

INCONSISTENT ROAD RULES

Marijuana Legalization Outpaces Changes in Driving Impairment Definitions.

SEATTLE - As states have legalized medical and recreational 
marijuana, each has varying limits determining whether a driver is 
impaired by use of marijuana.

In some, drivers are not allowed to have any detectable amount of 
marijuana in their systems. Washington, Colorado, Montana, 
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Nevada have set specific numerical standards. 
Other states have none.

Marijuana advocates, researchers, and legal experts warn that the 
current methods of testing blood or urine have limitations that could 
result in unfounded arrests or convictions.

"If you don't want people to drive impaired, then charge them for 
driving impaired," said Douglas Hiatt, a Seattle-based defense 
attorney. "Don't rely on a standard that's meaningless, unscientific, 
and prejudicial to people. It's just not right."

The Colorado Department of Transportation is working with law 
enforcement to train drug recognition experts and raise awareness to 
determine the effect marijuana has on impaired driving, said Glenn 
Davis, highway safety manager.

"We really want to know how many people have marijuana in their 
system when they're arrested," Davis said. "How big an influence is it?"

Alcohol limits and testing are comparatively straightforward. Every 
state bans driving with a blood- alcohol content at or above 0.08 
percent, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety 
Administration. Police have long used portable, handheld 
Breathalyzers and blood screens to measure alcohol levels - effective 
tools largely because of alcohol's relatively predictable 
relationship to the functioning of the body.

This is not the case with marijuana. Understanding how the drug 
interacts with a person's system is a complex biological issue.

In testing for marijuana, law enforcement looks for two main 
compounds: delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol ( THC) and 
11-nor-9-carboxy-delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

Delta-9-THC, one of the main psychoactive compounds, interacts with 
receptors in the brain and produces the high associated with 
marijuana use. Then it rapidly breaks down into the inactive 
metabolite carboxy-THC.

A blood test can distinguish between delta-9-THC and carboxyTHC, 
while a urinalysis identifies the latter.

Studies have shown that smoking marijuana regularly can contribute to 
an excessive buildup of delta-9-THC and carboxy-THC in the body's fat 
cells. This has long been a concern for medical marijuana patients, 
especially in states with "per se" limits or "zero-tolerance" policies.

In Washington and Montana, for example, the per se limit is 5 
nanograms of delta-9-THC per milliliter of blood. Any driver found at 
or above that level can be arrested and prosecuted with no other 
proof of impairment. States like Delaware and Wisconsin have 
zero-tolerance policies, which means any detectable amount of 
marijuana can result in a traffic safety conviction.

Critics argue that per se limits and zero-tolerance policies do not 
prove impairment, so they could be used to punish drivers who were 
not impaired. "A lot of people are in danger," said Vivian McPeak, 
executive director for Seattle Hempfest. "Especially medical patients."

A study published in 2015 by Forensic Science International found 
that THC stays in the blood of chronic users longer than previously 
thought. Researchers monitored 21 participants who admitted consuming 
marijuana heavily over the previous three months, then abstained for 
at least 24 hours. Of them, nine still had active delta-9-THC levels 
above legal definitions a day later; two tested above after five days.

Marijuana law reformers have also criticized the standards for 
establishing numerical limits, which they say analogize marijuana use 
to alcohol use.

"Marijuana is not alcohol," said Paul Armentano, deputy director of 
the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. "We are 
talking about different families of drugs that interact on different 
parts of the brain, that manifest in different changes of behavior." 
Andrea Roth, an assistant professor of law at the University of 
California, Berkeley, said the legal numerical limits for marijuana 
use are scientifically unfounded. "There is no demonstrated linear or 
predictable relationship between THC blood limits and an increased 
relative crash risk," she said.

Such studies played a crucial role in developing the first per se 
limits for alcohol, establishing a correlation between a 
blood-alcohol level of at least 0.08 percent and an increased risk of 
being involved in an accident.

Testing flaws, lack of science

Underscoring the disparities in legal limits and testing procedures 
is the question of whether marijuana actually increases the risk of 
being involved in an accident, and whether per se and zero-tolerance 
laws are justified scientifically or even needed.

A February 2015 report from NHTSA concluded that when alcohol 
consumption and demographics were controlled, there was no "increase 
in population-based crash risk associated with THC use."

Critics argue that per se limits and zero-tolerance policies are 
invalid without supporting scientific evidence. Instead, they 
recommend states use existing effect-based standards, meaning 
officers need to prove that a driver was impaired by marijuana based 
on the totality of evidence, including driving behavior, not just THC 
levels in their blood or urine samples.

Law enforcement effort

Dealing with impaired drivers is not a new phenomenon in states like 
Washington and Colorado, but as marijuana becomes more widely 
available, new dilemmas emerge for law enforcement.

One major issue in Washington state is the amount of time that 
elapses between pulling over suspected impaired drivers, determining 
if they are under the influence of marijuana, finding a judge, 
obtaining a search warrant to perform a blood draw, and then having 
that sample tested.

"Anything that causes a delay in this process causes us to lose 
evidence," said Washington State Patrol Lt. Rob Sharpe. Law 
enforcement agencies in Washington are combating this delay with an 
electronic warrant system, which allows officers to contact specially 
designated on-call judges by phone or email. This has decreased the 
waiting time to as little as a half-hour.

Another vital aspect of enforcement is training officers to identify 
drivers under the influence of marijuana. Every police officer in 
Washington receives 24 hours of DUI Detection and Standardized Field 
Sobriety Test training in the police academy. Washington has 208 
police officers across state, city, and county agencies who are 
certified drug recognition experts. Each gets three weeks of 
classroom and field training, during which each officer observes 
participants under the influence of various drugs, and learns the 
typical signs and behaviors associated with each substance, according 
to Sharpe. For marijuana, officers look for a green tongue, muscle 
spasms, eyelid flutters, an inability to cross the eyes, and the 
distinctive odor.

Colorado, the first state to legalize recreational marijuana, has 
around 218 drug recognition experts.

"What we're looking out for is the safety of everybody else," said 
Colorado State Patrol Trooper Colin Daugherty. "I don't have an 
opinion on the matter as long as you don't get into a vehicle and 
hurt somebody else."

Prevention and awareness

States with legalized marijuana are spending hundreds of thousands of 
dollars on campaigns to raise awareness and prevent people from 
driving while high.

"The biggest challenge that we really have now is data," said 
Colorado's Davis. "People have been driving impaired by drugs for a 
long time." Washington state for years has dispatched extra law 
enforcement patrols to focus on impaired driving. The effort is 
advertised in advance as a warning to motorists.

"We've seen our impaired driving numbers dropping as a result," said 
Jonna VanDyk, a program manager at the Washington Traffic Safety Commission.

To spread awareness, Washington has borrowed the "Drive High, Get a 
DUI" campaign advertisements from Colorado.

"It's legal. ... We have marijuana tourism. We're going to have an 
increase in marijuana-impaired driving," VanDyk said. "But does the 
data support that? I think we're going to need a few years of data 
before we can really say that."

[sidebar]

About this Series

This report is part of the project titled "America's Weed Rush," an 
investigation into the legalization of marijuana. It was produced by 
the Carnegie-Knight News21 initiative, a national investigative 
reporting project involving top college journalism students across 
the country and headquartered at the Walter Cronkite School of 
Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. For 
the complete project, including additional stories, videos and 
interactive elements, visit http://weedrush.news21.com.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom