Feds worry about catching those driving while high in states that legalize weed

WASHINGTON — As more and more states legalize marijuana, the vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board worries that law enforcement won’t be able to test for driving under the influence of cannabis.

"The enthusiasm for that and the legislation is sort of outstripping the law enforcement community’s ability to be able to keep up with measuring that,” Bruce Landsberg told NJ Cannabis Insider.

“It is a concern,” he continued. “With alcohol, we have a pretty good linear relationship. We understand alcohol very well. Cannabis is much more complicated.”

Police are concerned that without a quantifiable standard, arrests for driving while under the influence of marijuana could be thrown out of court, as is what happened in 2006 when the state Supreme Court said the officer who arrested a man who was driving erratically and had marijuana on him wasn’t an expert in assessing the effects of marijuana use.

There are other ways to determine whether a driver is impaired after using cannabis, said Morgan Fox, a spokesman for the National Cannabis Industry Association.

"Standardized Field Sobriety Testing and Drug Recognition Expert training has existed for a while and are excellent non-chemical ways to determine impairment of any sort,” he said.

Indeed, numerous studies from the National Institutes of Health have found a consensus on what someone high on marijuana looks like and the best indication of whether or she is driving while impaired is best determined by a trained expert’s observation, not blood testing.

“The science just isn't there to determine what level of THC in a person's body corresponds with impairment, and no standard level may exist given differences in body chemistry and personal tolerance,” Fox said.

“Also, so far there is no accurate roadside test to really determine how much THC is actually in a person's system. There is also the problem of false positives, which most existing tests produce frequently.”

Still, a Northern California-based company has developed a breathalyzer to determine the presence of THC and plans to bring it to market in early 2020.

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