Pubdate: Wed, 02 Mar 2016
Source: Argus, The (CN ON Edu)
Copyright: 2016 The Argus
Contact:  http://www.theargus.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4361
Author: Olivia Levesque
Page: 4

ROLLING STONED

Pot Legalization and the Future of Impaired Driving Legislation

There have been a lot of serious discussions regarding the 
legalization of marijuana in Canada in the last year. Since elected, 
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is mandated to begin the process of 
legalizing cannabis in Canada. Although it's hard to predict what 
exactly this process will involve, and what a system of legalized 
marijuana will look like in Canada, Trudeau has stated that Canada 
may look towards the Colorado model, as the state legalized in 2012.

In the Liberal party's platform, their stance on the legalization of 
marijuana consists of a few main points. The goal of the Liberals is 
to ensure that marijuana is kept out of the hands of youth, and the 
profits kept out of the hands of criminals. Marijuana consumption and 
incidental possession is to be removed from the Criminal Code, and 
new, stronger laws to punish more severely those who provide it to 
minors, those who operate a motor vehicle while under its influence, 
and those who sell it outside of the new regulatory framework will be in place.

With these points being clear and concise in the Liberal party's 
platform, some feel a bit hazier when it comes to the current 
legislation of impaired driving, and what new legislation will look 
like when the legalization of marijuana happens.

It has been argued that driving under the influence of marijuana 
isn't as bad as driving while under the influence of alcohol, 
however, studies show that smoking weed can affect spatial 
perception. Drivers who are stoned tend to have slower reaction times 
and can swerve or veer off the road more often, making them a much 
higher risk for collisions. It is estimated that Canadian teenaged 
drivers are twice as likely to drive after smoking marijuana as they 
are after drinking.

In Colorado, before the commercial sale of recreational marijuana was 
legalized, the state passed new laws making driving under the 
influence of pot illegal. The law states that any driver found with 
more than five nanograms of THC per millilitre of blood could be 
charged with a DUI.

Currently there is no legal limit specified for any drug other than 
alcohol in the Canadian Criminal Code. In 2008, the Code was amended 
to authorize police to demand field sobriety testing, like in 
Colorado. If law enforcement has reason to suspect drug use, they are 
to establish procedures for gathering evidence of drug use. Most 
police officers are have been trained to recognize the effects of 
seven families of drugs (including marijuana) and how to order blood 
or urine tests.

The struggle with legalization of pot and driving laws is that there 
is no current accurate test for measuring drug impairment. So far, 
there's no "pot breathalyzer" device that police can use to measure 
the amount a suspected impaired driver has consumed to determine 
level of impairment. For now, officers need to order a blood test, 
the results of which can be very controversial.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom