Road safety is lost in the haze
NY scrambles for driver pot-detect test
New York is putting the doobie before traffic safety, law-enforcement officials charge — forcing Albany to give the issue high priority.
Gov. Hochul’s administration is scrambling to develop a way to measure when motorists are driving while under the influence of cannabis since there’s no current standard or valid testing, The Post has learned.
The move comes ahead of the expected issuance of up to 175 retail licenses to sell marijuana in the coming weeks — jacking up pot access and usage that could potentially put more weed-whacked motorists on the road.
“With the legalization of adult use cannabis, there are concerns of increased incidences of driving while impaired after cannabis use,” the state Department of Health said in a proposal seeking solutions to detect motorists driving high on pot.
“Identifying drivers impaired by cannabis use is of critical importance . . . However, unlike alcohol, there are currently no evidencebased methods to detect cannabis-impaired driving,” health officials said in the pitch to potential bidders.
The DOH is looking for the latest academic research related to cannabis testing — like blood, saliva, or breath — and if pot intoxication can be linked to vehicle crashes.
Sobering crash data
A recent study conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found in states with legal marijuana, the rate of car crashes with injuries spiked by nearly 6% and fatal crashes jumped by 4%. The analysis compared five states with legal pot for those over 21 (Colorado, Washington, Oregon, California and Nevada) with states without legal marijuana — Arizona, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
There were no increases in crashes in the states without legal marijuana, the researchers said.
“Our latest research makes it clear that legalizing marijuana for recreational use does increase overall crash rates,” said Institute for Highway Safety President David Harkey.
A separate survey found that a third of drivers who drink alcohol and use marijuana at the same time report getting behind the wheel of a car within two hours of consumption — a worrisome finding since there’s evidence the alcohol-and-pot combo worsens driving performance more than either substance by itself.
New York law-enforcement groups opposed legal marijuana in large part because of the hurdles in proving drugged driving.
The Marijuana Regulation & Taxation Act was approved by exGov. Andrew Cuomo and the Legislature in March 2021 while Hochul was lieutenant governor.
When she took over as governor, Hochul moved to accelerate the process to regulate and sell cannabis in New York after pro-pot advocates accused Cuomo of slow-walking implementation of the law.
Cannabis remains in a person’s system longer than alcohol, making it harder to link usage to DWI, officials said — and there’s no test like an alcohol breathalyzer to prove intoxication. The cannabis law required DOH to issue a proposal to investigate ways to validly test for pot intoxication.
“This is reckless. We needed to solve the DWI problems before we legalized cannabis,” said Patrick Phelan, executive director of the State Association of Chiefs of Police.
The State District Attorneys Association also slammed policy makers, saying that drugged-driving research “should have begun in earnest way before the start of recreational sales.”