The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Bill aims to set standard for pot impairment
ACLU: Current road blood and saliva tests not able to show intoxication
Lost in the debate this year over the full legalization of marijuana by adults are the ramifications of misuse.
While there are precise ways to measure the influence of alcohol on drivers, marijuana intoxication is much harder to determine, with the science in its infancy and police left to assess suspects on a case-bycase basis, even in Massachusetts, where retails sales are now legal.
The only Connecticut bill to address the issue will come up for a preliminary vote Tuesday in the General Assembly’s Public Safety and Security Committee, following a public hearing last week in which Connecticut police chiefs warned that allowing retail cannabis sales before developing standards for misuse could create problems on state roads.
The bill stands a good chance of passage, since it has support from law enforcement, the AAA Motor Club and the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
“Currently, the issue of marijuana-impaired driving is not adequately addressed within the current statutory scheme because there is no objective measure regarding marijuana impairment levels when it
comes to operating a motor vehicle,” the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association said last week. “As the neighboring state of Massachusetts has recently legalized marijuana for recreational use, there is an overwhelming concern that the incidences of drugged driving will increase in Connecticut as a result.”
“You could have smoked marijuana 30 days ago and the police can’t prove you’re impaired,” said veteran state Rep. Gail Lavielle, R-Wilton, the chief proponent of the legislation, which has six Republican co-sponsors.
“This is neither a pro or anti-marijuana bill,” Lavielle said Monday. “This is a public safety issue that is very timely, whether Connecticut legalizes it or not. There has got to be a very clear goal of public policy to stay on this and figure it out.”
David McGuire, executive director of the ACLU Connecticut, noted that current roadside blood and saliva tests cannot determine whether someone is impaired from cannabis.
“This could result in someone who is not under the influence, who consumed marijuana weeks earlier, still receiving a positive test when they are not impaired,” he said. “Due to the fact that police in Connecticut disproportionately stop and pull over drivers of color, black and Latino people in Connecticut will also likely be exposed to roadside stops and tests more often.”
Amy Parmenter of the AAA said the optimum strategy would be the adoption of a standard prohibiting any concentration of the active cannabis chemical in the blood or saliva, as well as “behavioral and/or physiological signs of impairment as determined by a law enforcement officer.” Currently only 50 officers in Connecticut are fully trained in drug recognition.
She pointed out that 2017 data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration determined that 43 percent of vehicular fatalities in Connecticut involved a driver who exceeded the .08 alcohol limit, the greatest percentage in the nation and far above the average of of 29 percent.
Another report, from the Governor’s Highway Safety Association for 2015, found that 63 percent of Connecticut drivers who died in crashes and were tested for drugs, and that marijuana was the most prevalent drug found in the bodies of those tested, Parmenter told the committee.