Lawyer challenges California's marijuana DUI laws

[grace]

DUI lawyer Lawrence Taylor issued a press release on Thursday challenging California’s DUI laws, claiming that the DUI laws should not be applied to marijuana usage.

 

Known nationally as the “Dean of DUI Attorneys,” Taylor argues that “although it has always been assumed that cannabis, like alcohol, affects the ability to safely operate a motor vehicle, the studies do not support that.”

 

The California Department of Justice has found that marijuana impairs psychomotor abilities that are functionally related to driving, particularly at high-dose levels or among inexperienced users. ("Marijuana and Alcohol: A Driver Performance Study," California Office of Traffic Safety Project No. 087902)

 

Taylor points to two federal studies that dispute the California study’s findings.

 

The U.S. Department of Transportation conducted DUI research with a fully interactive simulator on the effects of alcohol and marijuana, alone and in combination, on driver-controlled behavior and performance. Although alcohol was found consistently and significantly to cause impairment, marijuana had only an occasional effect. Accidents and speeding tickets reliably increased with alcohol, but no marijuana or combined alcohol-marijuana influence was noted. ("The Effects of Alcohol on Driver-Controlled Behavior in a Driving Simulator, Phase I"(DOT-HS-806-414).)

 

In a more recent U.S. DOT study, they found that "THC is not a profoundly impairing drug....It apparently affects controlled information processing in a variety of laboratory tests, but not to the extent which is beyond the individual's ability to control when he is motivated and permitted to do so in driving."

 

The researchers found that it "appears not possible to conclude anything about a driver's impairment on the basis of his/her plasma concentrations of THC and THC-COOH determined in a single sample." ("Marijuana and Actual Performance" (DOT-HS-808-078).)

 

THC is the intoxicating ingredient in marijuana, and it is fairly quickly converted by the body into inactive metabolites which can stay in the body for hours or even days. But it is these metabolites that police are measuring in blood tests taken after drunk driving arrests.

 

In other words, Taylor explains, “(1) marijuana may not impair driving ability at all, and (2) the blood "evidence" only measures an inactive substance which may have been there for days.”

 

10 states have enacted have “zero tolerance” per se drugged driving laws, which forbid drivers from operating a motor vehicle with any detectable level of a controlled substance or its metabolites in one’s body fluids. Drivers can smoke a joint on Monday and get charged with drugged driving a week later, because of any trace of inactive THC metabolites in the blood. These laws are discriminatory because they charge someone with the crime of driving impaired, when there is not enough accurate scientific evidence to support that charge. The testing is flawed because it does not take into account whether the person’s driving ability is actually impaired, it instead is measuring the psycho-active substance THC plus the inactive THC metabolites which means someone’s whose driving ability is not impaired could fail the test because of a joint smoked several days ago. Add to that the inconclusive evidence that marijuana use actually impairs a user’s driving ability, and for one of the country’s top DUI attorneys there are just too many holes in the law's logic not to challenge it.

 

Date: 8 September 8 2009

Author: William Skordelis Broward County Liberal Examiner

Source: examiner.com

http://www.examiner.com/x-18527-Broward-Co...ijuana-DUI-laws

[Crunchy]

this guy is probably just out for publicity but its a fight i can get behind.

driving baked, imo, is only dangerous after really high doses of thc or in inexperienced hands (people who arent used to driving baked).

the tests used by the police should really be looked into and changed, but it shouldnt be left in the police/governments hands to change cos thats just not gonna happen....