What Police Look For In Medical Marijuana Driving Impairment.

[t-pain]

i forgot to emphasize the important part about this , it is SPECIFICALLY TALKING ABOUT HOW TO ARREST MEDICAL MARIJUANA PATIENTS FOR BEING UNDER THE INFLUENCE. thats why he mentions people v koon at the start of the article.

 

ran across this piece by ken stecker , the traffic prosecutor from Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan.

 

https://www.michigan.gov/documents/msp/SNN_Sept_2015_03_web_501458_7.pdf

 

its an interesting read on how police judge your impairment or not.

 

The importance of Standardized Field Sobriety

Tests in marijuana driving cases

By Kenneth Stecker

By now, everyone is aware of the Michigan

Supreme Court ruling of People v. Koon,

No. 145259, decided May 21, 2013.

The Koon Court ruled that “The immu-

nity from prosecution provided under the

Michigan Medical Marijuana Act (MMMA)

to a registered patient who drives with indi-

cations of marijuana in his or her system

but is not otherwise under the influence of

marijuana inescapably conflicts with MCL

257.625(8), which prohibits a person from

driving with any amount of marijuana in

her or his system. Under the MMMA, all

other acts and parts of acts inconsistent

with the MMMA do not apply to the med-

ical use of marijuana. Consequently, MCL

257.625(8) does not apply to the medical

use of marijuana.”

In essence, in order to be charged with a

crime, the driver who is a qualifying patient

under the MMMA, has to be operating

“under the influence” with tetrahydrocan-

nabinol, also known as THC, in his or her

system. As to a driver who is not a qual-

ifying patient under the MMMA, the law

prohibits a person from driving with any

amount of marijuana in her or his system.

In light of the Koon decision, it is impor-

tant that police officers and prosecutors

refresh themselves on what a police offi-

cer usually will see in some combination

with someone under the influence of only

marijuana:

 

Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN): None

 

Vertical Gaze Nystagmus (VGN): None

 

Lack of Convergence (LOC): Present (but not always)

 

Pupils: Almost always dilated (possibly normal)

 

GENERAL INDICATORS

• Bloodshot, watery eyes

• Relaxed inhibitions

• Body tremors

• Eyelid tremors

• Impaired perception time/distance

• Increased appetite

• Possible paranoia

• Possible panic attacks

• Divided attention impairment

• Odor of marijuana (not always)

• Debris in mouth, on tongue

Standardized Field Sobriety Tests

(SFST): Indicators of impairment will usu-

ally be evident on the Walk and Turn (WAT)

and/or One Leg Stand (OLS).

HGN: Will not usually cause any HGN, but

person might have difficulty holding their

head still due to divided attention issues.

VGN will not be present.

Walk and Turn: There are eight clues on

this test that were studied and validated

for .08 bodily alcohol level. However, they

are extremely useful for disclosing drug

impairment as well. The eight clues are

easy to remember in this way:

“BS SO WHAT.” In order, subjects some-

times lose their Balance during instructions.

Sometimes they Start walking too soon.

Sometimes they Stop while walking.

Sometimes they step Offline. Sometimes

they take the Wrong number of steps.

Sometimes they miss touching Heel-to-

toe by more than a half-inch. Sometimes

they raise their Arms more than six inches

from their sides for balance. And some-

times they Turn improperly. Additionally,

general, non-studied indicators of impair-

ment frequently manifest themselves as

well, including, but not limited to: failing to

count each step out loud, failing to watch

feet while walking, body tremors.

One Leg Stand: There are four studied,

validated clues for alcohol for this test. An

easy way to remember them is “DASH.”

Subjects sometimes put their foot Down

while balancing. Some raise their Arms

over six inches from their body for balance.

Some Sway while balancing. Sometimes,

they Hop. General indicators of impair-

ment frequently occur as well with the OLS,

including, but not limited: not looking at

the raised foot while balancing, jumbled

count/no count, and body tremors, unusu-

ally fast or slow count.

As with the WAT, make sure to remind

your officers to legalistically enforce the

instructions. This is how the National

Highway Traffic Safety Administration

(NHTSA) studied and validated them.

Departure from these rules causes a loss

of standardization and the tests may lose

most, if not all their weight in court.

Departure from the rules usually makes

these tests too easy for the subject and

they will not show the impairment that was

there all along. We already know this from

testing habitual drunks and other types of

tolerant substance users. Marijuana is no

exception.

Please take the time to review your

SFST’s and be as sharp as you can on them.

By committing these tests to memory, they

will be there when needed.

As officers may want to use the Modified

Romberg and the Lack of Convergence

tests as well, incorporate them in with the

SFSTs on all Operating While Intoxicated

investigations. They show impairment the

other tests don’t and are super for show-

ing marijuana impairment.

For more information on this article and

PAAM training programs, contact Kenneth

Stecker or Kinga Gorzelewski, Traffic Safety

Resource Prosecutors, at (517) 334-6060 or

e-mail at steckerk@michigan.gov or gor-

zelewskik@ Michigan.gov. Please consult

your prosecutor before adopting practices

suggested by reports in this article. Discuss

your practices that relate to this article with

your commanding officers, police legal advi-

sors, and the prosecuting attorney before

changing your practice.

 

stay frosty out there.

things to remember

dont have crumbs in beard

dont be shivering due to cold weather, because it means you are impaired somehow. what the flower??

[Kingdiamond]

Money grab and a way to fill the courts dockets and the states coffers I detest this states legislation.

[shishka]

"Do you feel like you could tackle a large pepperoni pizza son"?

[AmishRnot4ganja]

Has the government established whether or not Marijuana use causes impairment? Everyone who gets charged with impaired driving (drugs) should challenge it in court.

 

We need a law that requires the government to provide free legal representation for every criminal defendant regardless of income level. The government purposely charges innocent people knowing full well that they will get some kind of conviction simply because the defendant is unable to afford competent legal representation and is ignorant about their own legal rights.

 

It is criminal the way that the justice system is manipulated by overzealous prosecutors.

[+Malamute]

I always carry a cane in my vehicle with me.  Pretty much kills off 80% of what they would try to make you do leaving them with very little evidence of impairment.  If they try to make you get out of the car without the cane, tell them you cannot stand up without assistance from the cane ;-)

[imiubu]

I always carry a cane in my vehicle with me.  Pretty much kills off 80% of what they would try to make you do leaving them with very little evidence of impairment.  If they try to make you get out of the car without the cane, tell them you cannot stand up without assistance from the cane ;-)

 

Always thinkin' hu Mal?

[+Malamute]

I just been around the block a few times...

 

Cane? - check.

 

Banana? - check.

 

Towel? - check.

[AmishRnot4ganja]

I just been around the block a few times...

 

Cane? - check.

 

Banana? - check.

 

Towel? - check.

 

I get the cane, but what is the banana and towel all about?

[+Malamute]

Very Obscure silly references.

 

1) Always take a banana to a party. -- Doctor Who (Although, I used to always do this anyway. Silly conversation breaker. Million jokes loaded and ready to go.)

 

2)  A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you — daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

 

 More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost." What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

 

Hence a phrase that has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is." (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)

 

— Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

 

 

 

It's a tough world out there. Always know where your towel is...

[t-pain]

dont panic.

[imiubu]

Ah, a little levity... love it.

 

I got the towel reference but not the banana.

[shishka]

Thanks Mal, now you've got me all juiced up for a pan galactic gargle blaster. Luckily, Shorts is just now releasing some...

 

Edited October 27, 2015 by shishka

[suneday11]

Thanks Mal, now you've got me all juiced up for a pan galactic gargle blaster. Luckily, Shorts is just now releasing some...

 

yum. I've been loving the low-gluten stuff they are doing.

[GregS]

Always thinkin' hu Mal?

And they work pretty well as blunt instruments when someone fuks with us.

[GregS]

Where is it shown what cannabis impairment looks like? We are finding that highway deaths are diminished when the stuff becomes legal for everyone.

[Wild Bill]

Where is it shown what cannabis impairment looks like?