On smoking and driving

It should have been easy to see that driving under the influence was going to come up when voters gave the thumbs up to medical marijuana in Michigan. Marijuana is an intoxicant that has some effects similar to alcohol and opiates. It would seem to be a good thing for medical marijuana patients to not drive while under the influence of the medication. That's a matter of public safety, and not just because police have been reported to lay in wait near compassion centers where marijuana smoking takes place in order to arrest drivers suspected of intoxication. Other patients have been charged with DUI after having been stopped for other traffic violations and divulging that they were medical marijuana patients.

"There are some things you don't need to tell, don't have to and shouldn't," says Brandy Zink, a spokesperson for the Michigan Chapter of Americans for Safe Access, a pro-medical marijuana organization.

Hmm, maybe a variant on the old Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy for gays in the military is pertinent to the medical marijuana patient.

Zink notes that the odor of marijuana in your vehicle is probable cause for police to suspect intoxication, and the presence of marijuana might give police a clue. Either of those things could lead to a blood or urine test to figure out if you've ingested marijuana. Bad behavior might qualify you for closer scrutiny too.

This is way more complicated than it sounds and prompts a lot of questions that have not been answered on the legal tip. For instance, police test drunk-driving suspects for alcohol, the intoxicating ingredient in beer, wine and distilled spirits, in their blood. A blood alcohol content of .08 or higher makes you a drunk driver in Michigan. When it comes to marijuana, a legal limit for the presence of THC hasn't been established. What's more, the majority of marijuana tests are for metabolites created from marijuana as the body processes it; they mostly do not test for THC, the part of marijuana that gets you high. While some tests do identify the THC level, most tests are for 11-COOH-THC (also known by several other names), a byproduct metabolite that does not get you high but stays in the body much longer than the psychoactive ingredient.

Under the prohibition-zero tolerance approach, police need only prove the presence of these metabolites to establish that someone had used marijuana. This is fairly new territory. For law enforcement in the past, the focus was on arresting users for possession, not for impaired driving.

In June, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that, for registered medical marijuana patients, the presence of byproduct metabolites was not proof of intoxication at the time of citation — although there have been cases where police have charged drivers with medical marijuana cards for the presence of marijuana metabolites other than THC in their bloodstream since then. None of them have made it to trial.

Still, how does ingesting marijuana affect driving? In the past, there was no reason to figure out a level where legal impairment begins. Now medical marijuana patients want to know: How long do I have to wait before I can drive?

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