Driving While Stoned: How are Police Officers Detecting It?
Impaired driving of any kind is extremely dangerous. Police officers have developed multiple clear, fail-proof ways to determine someone’s blood alcohol content, making it easy to tell if someone is over the limit. As more and more states legalize marijuana, people driving while stoned is an increasingly frequent occurrence. Police officers and researchers are trying to find ways to detect when someone is driving high and exactly how high he or she is.
SannTek Measuring Marijuana
Recently, a startup from the University of Waterloo in Canada has designed a device to help police officers determine how much a driver is under the influence of marijuana. SannTek hopes to have a working prototype by this summer. It is a hand-held breathalyzer that police officers can keep on their person while they are on-duty. The device is accurate enough to detect one-millionth of a gram of THC, the marijuana component that is in a person’s breath.
The Device
SannTek’s device will have two main parts: a cartridge and a portable analyzer. The cartridge has the THC sensors and, after a driver blows into the cartridge, the police officer can put it in the analyzer to see how much THC is in the driver’s breath. The analyzer only takes five minutes to display the concentration of THC.
Legal THC Limit
The federal government recently set the THC legal limit at 2.5 nanograms. However, many people still do not know how much marijuana will put them over the legal limit. According to a Canadian study, 28% of marijuana users have driven under the influence at some point. 25% feel that it is less dangerous than drunk driving. A reported 17% of marijuana users felt their driving would not suffer if they were high. Though the government has set a legal limit, no one knows for sure at what point a person’s driving becomes impaired by marijuana.
Previous Efforts
People have been trying to find a way to measure the level of THC in a driver’s breath for years. In 2016, police officers in Massachusetts relied on a test conducted by a drug recognition expert to determine the level of impairment. It involves 12 steps and takes about an hour. However, the officer was required to take the driver into the station to conduct the test, and many police departments did not have a drug recognition expert available to do the test.
Other methods and devices had similar issues. Some methods take too long, or fail to allow an officer to administer the test on the road. The test not being available on the road was a serious issue, because it forced the officer to be very certain before taking someone into the station and making him or her take the test. Police officers cannot take each person they pull over from suspected marijuana impairment back to their department for testing. A handheld device such as the one SannTek has designed would make it exponentially easier to measure THC and identify stoned drivers.
Marijuana Legalization in the United States
Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize marijuana in 2002. Oregon, Nevada, Alaska, Maine, Vermont, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania have since also legalized marijuana. Most of these states allow the sale of marijuana for recreational use. Many other states allow marijuana use for specific medical issues, but people must have a doctor’s prescription to purchase any.
Though much of the country is moving toward loosening the regulations around marijuana consumption, the Trump administration is adamantly against the legalization of marijuana. Some researchers are recommending that state governments operate the marijuana distribution. Reports have shown that states that operate alcohol consumption have higher prices, fewer young people drinking, and less overall consumption.
Recent research has revealed most Americans support the legalization of marijuana. In 1969, 31% of Americans supported the legalization. In 2017, 64% of Americans said they supported legalizing marijuana. Though the support has been rising among all age groups, certain generations are more likely to be supportive of the legislation than others. Two-thirds of millennials support the legalization of marijuana. Support becomes less and less prevalent in older generations.