| Zero Tolerance Laws criminalize prior drug use |
| Drug war "hawks" have opened a new legal offensive, targeting drivers with the "mere presence" of illicit drugs in their system as guilty of Driving While Intoxicated. Eight states (Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Utah) currently have what are referred to as "per se" laws, meaning the mere presence of illicit drug metabolites is considered evidence of intoxication. The rest of the nation should follow their lead, said Dr. Michael Walsh, head of the President's Advisory Committee on Drugs under President Bush, and lead author of a massive study of drugged driving done under the auspices of the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation's (RWJF) Substance Abuse Research Program. "Driving under the influence of drugs, other than alcohol, has become a significant problem, but drugged drivers are not detected as often as drunk drivers," said Walsh at a recent conference highlighting the study that was the opening salvo in the new offensive. "There is a lack of uniformity in the way state laws approach drugged driving, there are no national standards for testing drugged drivers, and too few police officers are trained to detect drivers who may be under the influence of drugs," he warned, citing figures from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) that suggest as many as eight million Americans drive under the influence of illicit drugs each year. "If DUID [Driving Under the Influence of Drugs] laws were consistent and easier to apply, we could identify these individuals and get them into treatment before they become a serious threat to public safety," Walsh added. County Attorney Jerry Landau of Phoenix added that tthe roadblock to prosecution in the past has been the inability of prosecutors to prove impairment in DUID cases. However, by simply defining the presence of any illicit drug residues as evidence of intoxication, this roadblock is removed. "Zero-tolerance" laws "simply make it a criminal offense to operate a vehicle while having a drug or a drug metabolite in one's body or bodily fluids." explained Landau. While drug war "hawks" support this new legislative direction, drug law reformers are extremely critical. According to spokespersons for the Drug Reform Coordination Network (DRCNet), for example, the new law seems designed more to further criminalize marijuana smokers than to improve highway safety. Said one DRCNet writer: "It is one of the cruel ironies of the drug war that relatively innocuous marijuana - by far the most widely used illicit drug - remains detectable in peoples' blood for up to 10 days after smoking a single joint. Under the "zero-tolerance" model legislation the drug czar and others are proposing, the person who smoked a joint on Friday night could be busted for DWI a week later and regular pot smokers, in whom cannanaboid metabolites are presumably always present, could be subject to a DWI arrest any time they got behind the wheel." Furthermore, say drug law reformers, the new legislation assumes that the presence of drug metabolites indicates impairment, but that has not been proven to be the case, particularly when it comes to marijuana. "Marijuana does not impair driving," said Dr. Mitchell Earleywine, an expert on addiction and personality at the University of Southern California and author of the just published 'Understanding Marijuana: A New Look at the Scientific Evidence.' "Robbe (1998) got people high and had them drive around in the Netherlands. ... They tended to slow down, increase the distance between their car and the car in front of them, and refrain from trying to pass other vehicles. In short, they drove safely despite marijuana intoxication," Earleywine said. "Also, three studies have shown that people who tested positive for THC were no more likely to be at fault in accidents than people with no drugs detected," Earleywine continued. "With that in mind, if we want safe roads, we should focus on field sobriety tests rather than urine screens. If cops want to stop people who are driving recklessly and have them touch their nose, walk a straight line, and ride a unicycle, that's fine. If they want them to pee in a cup, though, they're wasting their time," he argued. "THC doesn't affect driving, and a lot of the drugs that they would detect in urine maybe left over from previous use. A person could have used a drug weeks before and no longer be impaired but still test positive in a urine screen." Marijuana researcher Dr. Ethan Russo of Montana Neurobehavioral Specialists in Missoula echoed Earleywine's conclusions. "Based on the science, there is no rational basis for the federal government to impose a zero tolerance test for cannabis or its metabolites with the prospect that its implementation will improve highway safety," Russo said. "Cannabis in isolation rarely causes serious impairment in motor skills or driving safety. Blood levels of THC and urinary measurement of THC metabolites do not correlate with brain levels or mental effects in any meaningful fashion," Russo added. "The only reasonable measure to assess 'drugged driving' is a field sobriety test, much as is commonly done for alcohol ingestion. A person who fails such a test based on evidence of impaired or reckless driving certainly deserves to be arrested and investigated for the sake of public safety." Keith Stroup, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, agreed, commenting: "Research to date indicates that marijuana smokers do not present any particular road hazard, but we recommend that people not smoke marijuana and drive," he said. "It's only common sense." Still, he said, the drugged driving campaign is an attack on marijuana consumers. "They are not going to identify people stoned and driving, they will identify anyone who smoked marijuana in the last several days," he said. "Regular smokers could test positive for up to six weeks. With people who do more dangerous drugs, it won't be effective - they go through the system in just a few hours. This is just part of the drug czar's anti-marijuana campaign." Drug czar spokeswoman Jennifer de Vallance disagreed. "It's about public safety," she said. "If illegal drugs are in someone's system, they would be classified as driving while impaired." When queried about the scientific literature showing little danger from drivers under the influence of marijuana and the fact that marijuana remains in the system long after its psychomotor effects have diminished, she replied: "It's about public safety." "If it's really about public safety, we need standards that measure impairment," countered Kevin Zeese, head of Common Sense for Drug Policy. "From their perspective, any marijuana use is or even metabolites in your blood is intoxication. We know that's not true." |