Driving While Stoned
OK Floridians, we got it ….legal medical marijuana. And the current thinking is that legal recreational marijuana may not be too far behind. Some Floridians aren’t waiting and are traveling to one of the various states from Colorado to Massachusetts where the local law allows dispensaries to sell marijuana to anyone. So let’s face it, more Floridians will be driving stoned than ever before and the situation is likely to get worse. Many people are now curious, is there a legal limit to the amount of marijuana you can have in your body and still be able to drive. It’s a good question and one that will get increasing attention.
The bottom line right now is that there is no established legal limit for driving while “stoned”. For that matter, there’s no legal limit for driving while having any particular drug in your body, except alcohol. With alcohol, each state specifies through its laws the exact maximum limit.
So does that mean that no matter what “state” you’re in, you can drive your car without concern for how much marijuana you have in your body. No, it’s not that simple. While there’s not a maximum limit, you still will be responsible if you drive your vehicle under the influence of . . . anything. Now this is different than driving while intoxicated in which it would have to be proven that you had in your system an amount of alcohol above the maximum allowed in your State. Driving under the influence makes you the arbiter of your limits. If you ingest marijuana and lose your ability to drive your car safely, you’re guilty of driving under the influence no matter how much you consumed. The same is true for any drug you take, including prescription medications.
Here’s an example of what this means: let’s say you’re driving and your car weaves back and forth on the roadway which causes the police to pull you over. If you explain that you were texting and not paying attention to the road, you may get a ticket for reckless driving. If the police officer smells marijuana in your car or maybe sees a lit joint, you may be required to do a field test. If you fail the test suggesting you are under the influence of a drug, impaired and shouldn’t be driving, you will likely get a ticket for both reckless driving and driving under the influence, which carries much more significant penalties. You may also be arrested and your car impounded.
Tiger Woods recently dealt with this issue. The police found him simply stopped at a stop sign for an extended period of time. When he got out of the car and did a field test it appeared obvious that he was impaired. Then he told the police that he was having a bad reaction to several recently prescribed medications. That was enough to get him arrested for driving under the influence. It was his duty to monitor the drugs’ effects on him and if he was impaired, to not get behind the wheel of his car. Now he can try to use several different defenses. He can argue, for example, that the “impairment” came upon him suddenly. When he recognized he was impaired, he immediately came to a stop which is when the police found him. If he hadn’t mentioned the drugs to the police, he could have made the defense that the drugs made him sleep walk and he wasn’t conscious that he had been driving. I did an interview on Fox-13 on Tiger Woods’ arrest for DUI. If you’d like to watch it, along with video the police took of Tiger’s field sobriety test, click here.
Driving under the influence carries significant fines and penalties because of the large number of deaths and injuries it causes. So when you’re taking your medications [marijuana or otherwise] or if you’re driving in Colorado enjoying your recreational weed, make sure you consider the issues of impairment before getting behind the wheel…it could save you a lot of grief and maybe your life.