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Marijuana Debate Goes Mobile As 'magic Number' For Driving While Stoned Sought


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LANSING, MI — How much marijuana makes someone too impaired to drive a vehicle?


The answer isn't easy to find, but it's one more than 100 lawmakers are set on finding.


The Michigan House are seeking a study to find the "magic number" of how much marijuana in a driver's blood means the person is impaired, a decision that currently falls to Michigan courts and juries.


 


While supporters look for a threshold based on a standard measurement of active THC (the main ingredient in marijuana) per milliliter of blood to catch drivers stoned to impairment, detractors say it's not that simple. Marijuana interacts differently with a person's body compared to alcohol, critics say, making it harder to measure for and determine impairment.


State Rep. Peter Lucido, R-Shelby Township, is the sponsor of the bill to create the study commission. He said other states have a set threshold for driving under the influence of marijuana — 5 nanograms of active THC per milliliter of blood in Colorado —  but they pulled those numbers "out of their derrieres."


He believes Michigan can be a pioneer and the first state to set a limit backed by science.


"If we don't get it correct, credibility wise, what's the point?" he said.


 


The bill describes a governor-appointed commission to study and find the "magical number," Lucido said, that would include a forensics toxicologist, a physician, a state police representative, a medical marijuana patient, and two professors from different Michigan public research universities.


Chris Lindsey, Senior Legislative Analyst at the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington D.C., said the organization supports the idea of reasonable laws to protect people from unsafe driving due to marijuana impairment, but criticizes "per se laws," that identify a certain amount of THC in someone's system.


"Spoiler alert, they're not going to find it," he said, confident that Michigan will study the issue and determine there is no magic number.


How other states enforce stoned driving


 


The MPP, formed in 1995, calls itself the largest U.S. organization focused solely on ending marijuana prohibition. The MPP acknowledges impairment can begin when active THC blood levels reach 5 to 10 ng/mL, but says not every driver with that concentration level is impaired and heavy users have higher concentrations in their blood even when sober.


"These laws may make some patients have to give up legally driving — even when they are completely unimpaired — if they want to use the medicine that works best for them," the MPP writes.


Triston Cole, the lone lawmaker voting against creating the commission, did not return a message left seeking comment.


Legal haze


Several stakeholders agree there are inconsistencies between Michigan's motor vehicle code and the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act.


A House Fiscal Agency report on the bill notes that the Michigan Vehicle Code prohibits a person from driving with any detectable amount of a Schedule 1 controlled substance (including marijuana) in his or her body, while the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act protects a qualifying registered patient from prosecution for operating a vehicle with any amount of marihuana in his or her system, as long as the patient is not under the influence of the drug.


Under current law, Lucido, a former defense attorney, said cases of drugged driving have been thrown out because there is no established limit based on a chemical test of bodily fluids to back up a claim in court.


"Defense lawyers will pick it apart otherwise because somebody arbitrarily and capriciously picked that number out," he said.


Issues of the laws were highlighted in the May 2013 Michigan Supreme Court decision in People Vs. Rodney Lee Koon, a driver pulled over for speeding in Grand Traverse County who presented an officer a medical marihuana card. Koon was arrested and a blood test showed 10 ng of THC per milliliter of his blood, according to court documents. He was charged with operating a motor vehicle with any amount of a schedule 1 controlled substance in his body.


 


A trial court ruled the defendant was protected from prosecution under Michigan's Medical Marihuana Act, and the circuit court upheld on appeal. The Court of Appeals reversed the decision, but the Michigan Supreme Court overturned, ruling the defendant was protected.


The Supreme Court noted, however, had the defendant been "shown to have been under the influence of marijuana, then the MMMA's protections will not apply, and the prosecution may seek to convict defendant under any statute of which he was in violation . . ."


The Supreme Court decision noted that the court was often being asked to weigh in on the issue relating to medical marijuana and driving under the influence, and suggested the legislature consider adopting a "legal limit," like the one for alcohol, to establish when a registered patient is outside the MMMA's protection.


Lucido said people have the right to use marijuana for medication, but says they shouldn't be allowed to "overmedicate" and get behind the wheel of a car.


"How high can they be before they're putting someone's life at risk?" which Lucido said would be the commission's job to determine.


Crashes involving drugs grow to decade high in Michigan, police say


 


Michigan marijuana activist Rick Thompson of Flint, author of the Compassion Chronicles, believes the legislature wants to forego the evaluation of whether the chemical THC impairs driving, saying the science is inconclusive.


 


"This is backwards science," Thompson said. "Instead of asking the University to study if THC has a negative effect on driving, and if so at what level, the legislature is directing the scientists to make an assumption that is not clearly established and start from that premise."


The proposal to study the issue comes on the heels of Michigan Sen. Tom Casperson's bill, which passed the Senate 28-10 in January, that would create a pilot program in five Michigan counties for roadside testing for marijuana, heroin, cocaine and other drugs.


Thomas J. Swift and Barbara J. Swift were killed in a May 20, 2013, crash in Escanaba when a driver on a suspended license with THC in his system, careened into the couple's car, killing them.


"This is the worst kind of death because somebody else chooses your fate for you by making selfish, senseless decisions," the couple's son, Brian T. Swift, said.


The driver, Harley Durocher, was convicted by a jury and sentenced on several counts including reckless driving causing death and two counts of operating while intoxicated causing death. His earliest release date is in December 2019.


Casperson's bill, Senate Bill 434, is a separate but related issue that deals with roadside testing for drugs while Lucido's bill would impact drug testing for marijuana during a blood draw, typically administered at a police facility or hospital.


"No amount is acceptable," Swift said when asked about the vote to create a commission to find a threshold for marijuana DUI. "You should not get behind the wheel in any impaired state."


No amount is acceptable," Swift said when asked about the vote to create a commission to find a threshold for marijuana DUI. "You should not get behind the wheel in any impaired state."


Swift equates the the issue to the time before the alcohol Breathalyzer, and noted that it's now a widely-accepted tool to detect drunk drivers. The proposed roadside drug testing pilot program would help define a similar roadside process for other substances, he said.


"In the meantime, we shouldn't not act," he said.


30 Michigan counties with the most drugged driving crashes


Thompson has been a vocal critic of both bills.


If the THC threshold bill, referred to the Committee on Judiciary April 27, passes and becomes law, it will be a while before the study is complete, the House Fiscal agency reports.


"By some estimates," the report states, "unless the scope of the research was scaled back, the wording of the bill appears to call for a study the scope of which could cost up to $10 million and take a decade to complete."


 


http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/05/marijuana_debate_goes_mobile_a.html


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They will find that magical number just as soon as they find one for prescription opioids and other impairing drugs. What they could do is take non-smokers and test them for a safe limit like alcohol, but it will never work in a medical environment without jailing innocent patients. In fact, they have already done tests like this and the safe limit for occasional users is around 20 ng/ml (relative to driving performance); maybe a little higher for accident likelihood.

 

It’s easy to imagine that daily users such as MMJ patients could safely drive around 20 – 100 ng/ml. That’s why I say things won’t be fixed with just legalization, because they add BS laws like 5 ng/ml limits to compensate arrests all the time. It’s the entire motivation behind bills like roadside saliva testing, illegal transport, blood limits, ect; all targeting MMJ right after we won in the courts.

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We all know they will tag it as low as possible just like the alcohol limit .08 you barely feel a buzz while drinking this is going to be geared to put more people in jail and put more money into the coffers of the county your convicted in  and will relate very little to keeping people safe .

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Shouldn't all medication that has a warning on the label to use care or avoid driving, also have a "limit" set as to how much you can legally have in your body before you are considered impaired? Or would this cost Big Pham too much in profits?

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Shouldn't all medication that has a warning on the label to use care or avoid driving, also have a "limit" set as to how much you can legally have in your body before you are considered impaired? Or would this cost Big Pham too much in profits?

 

 

Sure i can agree but wants you put some kind if number on anything it only opens the door for Lawyer's and Court to get involved

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Shouldn't all medication that has a warning on the label to use care or avoid driving, also have a "limit" set as to how much you can legally have in your body before you are considered impaired? Or would this cost Big Pham too much in profits?

 

I was prescribed weak opioids for severe pain and when I first started taking 1 - 2 a day I could barely walk straight or talk without some slur (I try to avoid them so my tolerance was very low). I made the choice not to drive because I knew the drug was affecting me. Those side effects wore off over a week or two. I can now take 4 a day without any side-effects or impairment. Imagine if there was a limit saying it was OK for me to operate intoxicated with 1, but not sober with 4 a day.

 

People build up tolerances, its the reason this will never work. I would have never operated a vehicle after the first few times I smoked, it just wouldn't have been possible. Now smoking a cigarette will create more impairment than a bowl or joint. The only legit way to verify if someone is intoxicated from medication is standard sobriety tests.

Edited by Alphabob
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I was prescribed weak opioids for severe pain and when I first started taking 1 - 2 a day I could barely walk straight or talk without some slur (I try to avoid them so my tolerance was very low). I made the choice not to drive because I knew the drug was affecting me. Those side effects wore off over a week or two. I can now take 4 a day without any side-effects or impairment. Imagine if there was a limit saying it was OK for me to operate intoxicated with 1, but not sober with 4 a day.

 

People build up tolerances, its the reason this will never work. I would have never operated a vehicle after the first few times I smoked, it just wouldn't have been possible. Now smoking a cigarette will create more impairment than a bowl or joint. The only legit way to verify if someone is intoxicated from medication is standard sobriety tests.

Even though the field sobriety tests are often abused, that is still the most reasonable method available. And should be administrred only after witnessing some example of impaired driving to begin.

 

But yeah, just as another example, give me a single dip of chew... My head will spin and walking a line becomes difficult. I never ever get like that from smoking mj... Never ever. Give me a bar of xanax, il wake up the next day w bruises and scratches on me not recalling how/when it happened. Again, never does that happen on mj.

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I was prescribed weak opioids for severe pain and when I first started taking 1 - 2 a day I could barely walk straight or talk without some slur (I try to avoid them so my tolerance was very low). I made the choice not to drive because I knew the drug was affecting me. Those side effects wore off over a week or two. I can now take 4 a day without any side-effects or impairment. Imagine if there was a limit saying it was OK for me to operate intoxicated with 1, but not sober with 4 a day.

 

People build up tolerances, its the reason this will never work. I would have never operated a vehicle after the first few times I smoked, it just wouldn't have been possible. Now smoking a cigarette will create more impairment than a bowl or joint. The only legit way to verify if someone is intoxicated from medication is standard sobriety tests.

Thanks, that was really the point I was trying to make. Why do they feel it necessary to put a number on everything when everyone is affected differently? If the concern is a persons ability to operate a motor vehicle with the ability to react quickly enough to respond to conditions in order to avoid killing oneself and others, then they should have a driving simulator at the SOS in order to get your licenses to operate a machine that weighs several tons. That in itself would thin out the herd, if you will, quite well I believe.

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I was prescribed weak opioids for severe pain and when I first started taking 1 - 2 a day I could barely walk straight or talk without some slur (I try to avoid them so my tolerance was very low). I made the choice not to drive because I knew the drug was affecting me. Those side effects wore off over a week or two. I can now take 4 a day without any side-effects or impairment. Imagine if there was a limit saying it was OK for me to operate intoxicated with 1, but not sober with 4 a day.

 

People build up tolerances, its the reason this will never work. I would have never operated a vehicle after the first few times I smoked, it just wouldn't have been possible. Now smoking a cigarette will create more impairment than a bowl or joint. The only legit way to verify if someone is intoxicated from medication is standard sobriety tests.

Wait until your teeth rot out and you will see the side effectd of opoids!

 

I have been getting rx's for opoids since may of 98, for maybe a yr I abused them, I have an addicted personality, it will rot your teeth just like crack and heroin, there are most def nasty side effects to opoids and other rx's, I smoked mj all of my life, I was always complimented about how nice my teeth were, than I had an auto mobile accident, after about 7 yrs on them I had nothing but rotten teeth, most dentists dont want too pull your teeth, they would much rather fix them, I had a very good dentist, when he seen what opoids did to my teeth he said we need to pull them all and make you some dentures, I cant fix your teeth, he said he can fix them but it would only be temporary, so I had them all yanked and now have full dentures!

 

Beleive me I would rather have my dentures than the nasty teeth I had do to opoids, bad breath, no smiling, embarassment!  Now I have dentures, people have no clue unless I tell them, and Im not embarassed, I will take them out and bite your butt with them lol!

 

Peace

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Wait until your teeth rot out and you will see the side effectd of opoids!

 

I have been getting rx's for opoids since may of 98, for maybe a yr I abused them, I have an addicted personality, it will rot your teeth just like crack and heroin, there are most def nasty side effects to opoids and other rx's, I smoked mj all of my life, I was always complimented about how nice my teeth were, than I had an auto mobile accident, after about 7 yrs on them I had nothing but rotten teeth, most dentists dont want too pull your teeth, they would much rather fix them, I had a very good dentist, when he seen what opoids did to my teeth he said we need to pull them all and make you some dentures, I cant fix your teeth, he said he can fix them but it would only be temporary, so I had them all yanked and now have full dentures!

 

Beleive me I would rather have my dentures than the nasty teeth I had do to opoids, bad breath, no smiling, embarassment!  Now I have dentures, people have no clue unless I tell them, and Im not embarassed, I will take them out and bite your butt with them lol!

 

Peace

 

Thanks for the info. I’ve always focused on the addictive potential rather than long-term side-effects, but I know a lot of these drugs are bad for your teeth. Drugs including opioids, stimulants, cannabis (especially combinations), and some diseases can cause dry mouth (xerostomia). Having chronic dry mouth for months or years can cause severe tooth decay, increased sugar consumption and I’m guessing for many being stoned off opioids/heroin decreases their chance of daily dental care or visiting a dentist.

 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/05/000529093840.htm

 

I’ve read some disturbing things about opioids in regards to brains structure changes. They say that these changes can be picked up with MRIs even after a month of morphine use. Unfortunately, it’s still unclear exactly what’s going on. Maybe opioids should have been the highly scrutinized drug instead of cannabis.

 

In their cross-sectional study of 10 dependent individuals and 10 age-matched controls, the researchers found decreased gray matter volume in the bilateral amygdala. The amygdala is a key reward-modulating structure that is known to underlie opioid-related addiction, dependence, and tolerance. The results of the Upadhyay et al., paper adds to existing animal literature showing that opioid exposure has a broad range of effects on the amygdala, including decreased mu-opioid receptor sensitivity, modulated GABAA receptor functioning and modified glutamate receptor targeting. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3138838/

 

What is clear is that you don’t need an addictive personality to get hooked on opioids, because they completely rewire your reward circuits. This is why we have an opioid epidemic because anyone can become an addict. Right now I’m on Tramadol which is very weak (4 pills is 1/10th a standard dose of morphine). I first started taking it after shingles, and then again due to a likely non-malignant bone tumor compressing nerve roots in my neck. When your in so much pain that you don’t know how your going to make it through the next several hours, let alone weeks till a doctor appointment, you will do anything to get relief. Luckily, Lyrica is helping more than the opioids so I’m planning to wean myself off soon.

Edited by Alphabob
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation's largest automobile club says six states that allow marijuana use have legal tests for driving while impaired by the drug that have no scientific basis, and it's calling for scrapping those laws.

 

The study commissioned by AAA's safety foundation said it's not possible to set a blood-test threshold for THC, the chemical in marijuana that makes people high, that can reliably determine impairment. Yet the laws in five of the six states automatically presume a driver is guilty if they test higher for THC than the blood threshold, and not guilty if they test lower.

 

The foundation says the result is that drivers who are unsafe may be going free, while others may be wrongly convicted.

 

The six states are Colorado, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington.

 

 

 

http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/govt-and-politics/study-no-scientific-basis-for-laws-on-marijuana-and-driving/article_aeb8c003-2258-5bf5-822b-626290512300.html

Edited by imiubu
OP request.
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Let’s hope they don’t turn to other states. Even if they could define a scientific number, they would also need to either take roadside blood tests or factor in the amount of time it takes to get blood drawn.

 

Pennsylvania*: 1ng/ml       (ng/ml = μg/L)
Ohio*: 2 ng/ml
Colorado: 5ng/ml
Nevada*: 2ng/ml
Washington: 5ng/ml
* Metabolites also considered

 

Cannabis effects on driving lateral control with and without alcohol

http://www.drugandalcoholdependence.com/article/S0376-8716%2815%2900314-2/addons

 

Current occasional (≥1×/last 3 months, ≤3days/week) cannabis smokers drank placebo or low-dose alcohol, and inhaled 500 mg placebo, low (2.9%)-THC, or high (6.7%)-THC vaporized cannabis over 10 min.

 

In N = 18 completers (13 men, ages 21–37years), cannabis and alcohol increased SDLP. Blood THC concentrations of 8.2 and 13.1 μg/L during driving increased SDLP similar to 0.05 and 0.08 g/210 L breath alcohol concentrations.

 

Only alcohol increased lateral acceleration and the less-sensitive lane departures/min parameters.

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I agree let Michigan be its own State and lead the way to a better State for cannabis users all over the county 

Let's be Pure Michigan 

 MI is arresting patients for a plant, this is no leader in my opinion. Shall we allow the Michigan State Crime Lab to dictate numbers?  after their fraud has been exposed in the cannabis persecutions?  Sick people are in court for watering their plants on the porch, no positive example there sadly.  Maybe the State Police could use our program money to set further limits to protect us, while arresting and jailing more of us. Thats scary. 

our Pure Michigan courts rarely allow a sick Medical Marijuana patient to even say he is carded or sick or dying, this is embarrassing.

 

we could look to MI or to a liberal cannabis state, when choosing what limitations we wish to impose upon ourselves.  Cannabis friendly states have cannabis friendly guidelines. MI is not cannabis friendly today, after 8 years.....

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 MI is arresting patients for a plant, this is no leader in my opinion. Shall we allow the Michigan State Crime Lab to dictate numbers?  after their fraud has been exposed in the cannabis persecutions?  Sick people are in court for watering their plants on the porch, no positive example there sadly.  Maybe the State Police could use our program money to set further limits to protect us, while arresting and jailing more of us. Thats scary. 

our Pure Michigan courts rarely allow a sick Medical Marijuana patient to even say he is carded or sick or dying, this is embarrassing.

 

we could look to MI or to a liberal cannabis state, when choosing what limitations we wish to impose upon ourselves.  Cannabis friendly states have cannabis friendly guidelines. MI is not cannabis friendly today, after 8 years.....

 

Thanks

 Of course i agree that Michigan is arresting patients for a plant i've seen it first hand  as most here know we where the first two that had it happen but even after 8 years i'm still going to Court support some case's get dismissed even with large numbers of plants and others get convicted with small numbers of plants that they have cards for ( Legal plant counts ) thats the part i don't understand how some get dismissed while other get hammered in the same Court room / House 

 

The last case i was at a week ago someone on the jury was asked by the judge if he could set aside he feeling about cannabis this person was a  Cancer Doctor he knew about the Law and had signed a few recamendations for his own patients he said yes as long as they our following the Law my point is that the Doctor had /has no idea if his patient started to grow their own cannabis they only have a 50/50 chance of not ending up in the same Court room he was inn that day     

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