On November 8th, 2016, Massachusetts citizens voted to legalize marijuana.  Having grown up in the liberal state of Massachusetts for the past 19 years, I always figured we would be some of the pioneers in the push for nation wide legalization.  What most people failed to consider was how much of an impact driving under the influence of Marijuana would have, specifically surrounding new laws or lack thereof.  While watching my local news I heard of a story about a man who was arrested for driving under the influence of marijuana soon after it had been legalized.  It then went on to say that he was given a field sobriety test, which is normally used to test if a person is too intoxicated to drive.  People were angry and believed it was not a fair test because these two drugs effect the brain differently.

How should laws for driving under the influence of marijuana be changed in the states where it is now legal?  Scientists and authorities need to develop a new way of detecting if a person is too high to drive using a saliva test because having this test will take the guesswork out for police and will keep wrongly accused people from getting a DUI.

Across the states that have legalized marijuana there is no set rule on how to detect if a person is too high to drive.  Even if there was a way, scientists and authorities cannot come to a consensus regarding a legal limit of THC, the chemical in marijuana that makes people feel high (DNewsChannel),  in the body to be able to detect if a person is too high to drive. States where marijuana has been legalized either use a field sobriety test conducted by a police officer or use a blood test to tell if a person is too high to drive.  The problem with a field sobriety test is that it was originally created to tell if a person was drunk, not high.  This test could make a person appear more high than they actually are and get them in trouble, or it could potentially set a criminal free if it makes them seem less high.  Also, there is a lot of responsibility on the officer conducting the test because the results weigh heavily on the officer’s interpretation.  

Blood tests are no better: in September of 2016, a woman in Colorado was arrested for driving under the influence of marijuana, but she claimed she had not smoked that day.  She was given blood test which revealed that she had 5 times Colorado’s legal limit of THC in her bloodstream.  Still the woman claimed innocence.  She was put in front of a jury who gave her a lesser charge, however this all could have been avoided if there was a way to test if the woman was in fact high at the time of the arrest (Markus).   There have been several cases similar to this woman’s story because of the way the human body metabolizes the THC in marijuana.

When a person consumes marijuana, it passes quickly through the bloodstream and is absorbed in the fatty tissue of the brain (Papafotiou).  Only a small amount of THC is left in the bloodstream, this is called metabolized THC and it can remain in the system for up to 30 days.  Active THC is the chemical that is absorbed almost immediately and remains in the system only for a few hours after ingesting marijuana, this is what makes a person feel high.  The problem with using a blood test to detect for marijuana consumption is that it does not differentiate between active and metabolized THC, therefore a person could have used marijuana 2 weeks ago yet their blood test would come back positive because the metabolized THC remains in their bloodstream (DNewsChannel).  A blood test is effective for testing alcohol because it metabolizes at a linear rate in the body, but marijuana is treated differently in the body so it is unfair to use the same test on them. 

A more deadly incident occurred in Suffolk County, MA.  A man who was allegedly under the influence of alcohol and marijuana crashed his car into an airport shuttle, killing two people on the bus.  Many people are unaware of how dangerous it is to drive high, it can be just as dangerous as driving drunk and combining the two makes it even worse.  Since there is no breathalyzer type test for marijuana people tend to take it less seriously thank alcohol.  District Attorney Daniel Conley said, “Massachusetts has neither an established impairment level nor an efficient means to test for one. Policymakers should be aware of this knowledge gap and take steps to bridge it if we expect to identify and prevent THC impairment among drivers” (Tieran).  This goes for all states that have legalized marijuana.  Citizens should have been educated on the dangers of driving high and how laws would change to accommodate for marijuana before they voted to legalize it.  In Washington state deadly car accidents due to driving under the influence of marijuana went from 8% in 2013 to 17% in 2014, Colorado also saw a sharp increase (Rumball).  If drivers knew that a police officer could easily test if they were too high to drive, perhaps less of them would be on the road endangering themselves and others.  

Police officers are struggling to adjust to the legalization of marijuana just as much as the citizens.  They are being put under the spotlight for using field sobriety tests and perhaps wrongfully accusing someone of being high.  A Canadian article “Doobs of Hazard” shows the struggles of a police department that mimic the issues in the United States exactly.  In order to give these marijuana sobriety tests, the officer conducting it needs to be a “drug-recognition expert (DRE) an officer specially trained to detect and identify substances a driver has taken, thus establishing legal grounds to demand a urine or blood sample” (Gillis).  There are several problems with this.  First off these Canadian officers need to be trained to become DRE’s in a 2 week program in Jacksonville, FL, which costs a lot of money and time for the department.  Because of the time and money it takes, this department only has a couple DRE’s.  So if the DRE is either not on duty or busy working, other officers are technically not qualified to demand blood or urine samples or properly conduct a field sobriety test.  If an officer who is not a DRE arrests someone for being high on marijuana while driving their testimony is often not very useful in court.  This leads to a small percentage of drugged driving charges because it is so hard to prove especially with all the police’s restrictions.

This article also mentions a new German made roadside drug test called DrugWipe.  It is similar to a breathalyzer except it uses the persons saliva and can tests for several drugs including marijuana.  It tests active THC, not metabolized THC like blood tests which are often innacurate.  This test is being used in a couple countries in Europe and has a lab in the United States, where they have shown the device is 100% accurate and in several trials it has also proved accuracy.  There are also 2 more saliva tests being tested across the globe (Gillis).  Should one of these tests be accepted in the United States and Canada it would improve the lives of citizens and police officers.  It would eliminate the need for costly DRE training and give people the peace of mind of knowing there will not be any guess work from police.  Hopefully this device will also keep high drivers off the road knowing the police can easily prove they are high.  However, there is still the issue of setting a legal limit of THC in the bloodstream, but having this device would force lawmakers to create one.  Overall a test like DrugWipe could radically change the way 
