THC driving bill may be hard to kill despite iffy science, senator says
According to Carroll, she hasn't seen any new research since last year to show that a per se limit when it comes to THC can be as predictable and effective as the one measuring alcohol, and if so, what it might be. "I've seen ranges from 5 to 20 nanograms, which is a profound range of variation," she notes. "And it's already against the law to drive intoxicated. So if you're going to add a pot per se, it's because you think you have enough scientific data to establish a point where people become impaired.
"If that day ever comes for marijuana, we can realistically have this discussion. But as we heard in testimony before, and from what we've seen, there's no standardization in actual content of marijuana. People metabolize all over the board and medical marijuana patients with chronic pain or illness probably always have some THC in their system. And I don't think they should be criminalized for using medical marijuana."
Morgan Carroll.
Moreover, she continues, "we know that Oxycontin, Percocet, Valium and all kinds of prescription drugs can also be impairing. So I'm a little uncomfortable about picking and choosing pet causes and issues in an area like this. If we're going to take the law-enforcement perspective on this, I think it's only fair to take a scientific approach to anything that can impair you, not only marijuana."
If a marijuana per se or zero tolerance law passes, would patients be forced to choose between driving and using medical marijuana as recommended by a physician? "They'd be taking an enormous risk to come to any other conclusion," Carroll believes. "Not all people are willing to risk a criminal record to take their medicine. So you're putting people in an untenable spot. Of course, people shouldn't get behind the wheel when they're impaired. But when they're not impaired, they could still have THC in their blood -- and there's no gadget like a breathalyzer that would allow them to determine if they were impaired by using medical marijuana. That doesn't exist. So they're left with the choice of gambling even if they don't feel impaired."
Nonetheless, Carroll acknowledges that the idea of a THC-driving bill has a great deal of support, due in part to the difficulty of explaining the distinction between measuring alcohol and marijuana impairment. "People think, 'Oh, we don't want impaired people driving, and unless we pass this bill, there's nothing to stop them' -- which is factually false, because it's against the law right now. If you're observed driving in a way that shows you're impaired, you can be prosecuted. This is just a shortcut, where the prosecution doesn't have to offer any proof of impairment. The per se limit means they can pick a magic number -- and in this case, it would be magical, not scientific -- and then they don't have to provide any evidence of actual impairment."
Even so, Carroll believes that "the momentum is going to be with passage of this bill. It was quite an extraordinary effort to stop it last time -- and this time, the bill may get assigned differently."
What's that mean? According to Carroll, supporters may direct the bill to a committee on which she or other bill opponents sit, making it more difficult for them to present arguments against it. And if the measure gets out of committee, she suspects there's enough support among the senate as a whole for it to be approved.
"It's easy to mock," she concedes. "People assume this is really about bored frat boys misusing the state's medical marijuana laws. And as long as that perception is out there, it's going to be difficult to defeat."
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More from our Marijuana archive: "THC driving limit: Task Force member says no recommendation wouldn't stop new bill."
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