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Your License, Your Urine

By Paul Armentano| AlterNet | June 21, 2004.

New state and federal laws seek to charge non-impaired pot smokers with 'drugged driving.'

Imagine if it were against the law to drive home after consuming a single glass of wine at dinner. Now imagine it is illegal to drive after having consumed a single glass of wine two weeks ago. Guess what? If you smoke pot, it's time to stop imagining.

Legislation weaving its way through the US Congress demands all 50 states pass laws granting police the power to drug test drivers and arrest anyone found to have "any detectable amount of a controlled substance ... present in the person's body, as measured in the person's blood, urine, saliva, or other bodily substance." Though the expressed purpose of the law is to target and remove drug-impaired drivers from US roadways, the proposal would do nothing of the sort.

Most troubling, the proposed law -- H.R. 3922 -- does not require motorists to be identifiably impaired or intoxicated in order to be criminally charged with the crime of "drugged driving." Rather, police have only to demonstrate that the driver has detectable levels of illicit drugs or inactive drug metabolites in their blood, sweat, saliva or urine. As many pot smokers know, marijuana metabolites are fat soluble, and remain identifiable in the urine for days and sometimes even weeks after past use. Consequently someone who smoked a joint on Monday could conceivably be arrested on Friday and charged with "drugged driving," even though they are perfectly sober!

Here's how the law would work. Police, at their discretion, could order motorists during a traffic stop to undergo a drug test, most likely a urine test. If the driver's urine tests positive for prior pot use then he or she would automatically be charged and eventually found guilty of the criminal offense of driving under the influence of drugs -- even if the pot in question was consumed weeks earlier. Under the law, the fact that the driver is not impaired is irrelevant; the only "evidence" necessary is the positive test result.

[Suetaznote: I'm sorry Mr. Officer, but there's no way you're going to get me to pee in a cup at the side of the road. Besides infringing on my rights to consume cannabis, you're not infringing on my personal privacy rights too. I can't imagine them getting away with this law.]

So Who's Behind This?

Over the past five years, a small cabal of prohibitionists, drug testing proponents and toxicologists have pushed for legislation criminalizing drivers who operate a vehicle with inert drug metabolites present in their system. To date, their efforts have persuaded ten states -- Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah and Wisconsin -- to pass such "drugged driving" laws, known as zero-tolerance per se laws. Leading this charge is the Walsh Group, a federally funded organization that develops drug testing technology and lobbies for rigid workplace drug testing programs. Walsh Group President, Michael Walsh, is the former Director of the Division of Applied Research at the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and formerly served as the Associate Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), informally known as the Drug Czar's office.

In November 2002, the group partnered with the ONDCP to lobby state legislatures to amend their drugged driving laws. Every state has laws on the books prohibiting motorists from driving "under the influence" of a controlled substance. Like drunk driving laws, virtually all of these laws require the motorists to be impaired by their drug use in order to be charged with "drugged driving."

Nevertheless, the Walsh Group argued that these existing laws are too lax on illicit drug users. To bolster their claim, they argued -- without explanation -- that actually linking illicit drug use to impaired driving is a "technically complicated and difficult task." Their solution? States should enact zero tolerance per se laws redefining "drugged drivers" as any motorist who tests positives for any level of illicit drugs or drug metabolites, regardless of whether their driving is impaired.

"There is clearly a need for national leadership at the federal level to develop model statutes and to strongly encourage the states to modify their laws," the organization concluded in a widely disseminated report. Notably, the authors failed to mention that the widespread enactment of such a policy would be a political and financial windfall for the Walsh Group's drug testing technology and consulting services.

The Walsh Group is hardly the only organization with something to gain from the Bush administration's proposed "drugged driving" crackdown. Speaking at a White House-sponsored symposium in February, former 1970s Drug Czar Robert Dupont -- another ex-NIDA director who now heads the workplace drug testing consultation firm Bensinger, Dupont & Associates (BDA) -- also demanded the federal government mandate zero-tolerance drugged driving laws.

"Workplace drug testing has prepared us for drugged driving testing," Dupont told attendees, arguing that just as many public and private employees are subjected to random drug screening, so should be motorists. Those drivers who test positive, says Dupont, should then be monitored through regularly scheduled drug tests, including hair testing, for a period of two to five years.

"The benefits of this approach will be improved highway safety," he concluded, failing to explain how punishing sober drivers while simultaneously lining BDA's pockets would make America's roadways any safer.

Cruising on Cannabis: What's the Problem?

"Driving under the influence of, or after having used, illegal drugs has become a significant problem worldwide," states the preamble to H.R. 3922. However, despite the government's claim, epidemiological evidence on the number of motorists who drive under the influence of illicit drugs is scarce.

Further, among the limited evidence that does exist, much of it finds that pot's measurable yet relatively mild effects on psychomotor skills do not appear to play a significant role in vehicular crashes, particularly when compared to alcohol. "Crash culpability studies have failed to demonstrate that drivers with cannabinoids in the blood are significantly more likely than drug-free drivers to be culpable in road crashes," summarized researchers Gregory Chesher and Marie Longo in the recent book Cannabis and Cannabinoids: Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Therapeutic Potential. A 2002 Canadian Senate report was even more succinct, stating, "Cannabis alone, particularly in low doses, has little effect on the skills involved in automobile driving."

Nonetheless, Congress' proposed bill specifically and disproportionately targets motorists who may occasionally smoke pot because marijuana's metabolites exit the body more slowly than other drug metabolites, often remaining detectable in urine for several weeks at a time. Equally troubling, there currently exists no technology that can accurately correlate drug metabolite concentration to impairment of performance.

Of course, such concerns are no bother to those in Congress who intend to ride this latest wave of drug war rhetoric to reelection. Nor are they of much worry to those in the drug testing industry who stand to make a fortune prosecuting and jailing sober pot smokers.

As for everybody else, be afraid; be very afraid. And be sure to keep a fresh sample of urine in the glove compartment.

This article originally appeared in Heads Magazine in Canada.

Paul Armentano is the senior policy analyst for The NORML Foundation in Washington, DC.

[Suetaznote: Anyone care to express their opinion of the proposed 'drugged driving' laws? Now is the time to write your members of Congress and let them know how you feel. If anyone does write letters, I would encourage you to post them here. If not, just post your comments here. If you feel the way I do, try to keep the cuss words down, it's a pain to read all those ****in' stars. ]

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Dennis

The law will ensure that every anti-marijuana fascist, including soccer mom's and fishing dads, stand the chance of being pulled in and pissed. That's giving Americans a taste of their own medicine.

This is good for legalization. When the false positives start coming in, I predict the "moral" majority will make this law go away quickly, and change attitudes about drug prohibition. This law will frustrate federal government's impossible efforts to stem the use of marijuana in our society.

It's a shame that Congress wastes their time on laws like these. The answer has always been there, legalize and regulate drugs for adult use.


Dennis

ZanZaBar

This is absolutely preposterous! So if someone smokes a joint on a friday night, and then monday morning they get pulled over and drug tested, that means they will test positive for driving under the influence? How friggin absurd! What happens if you come back from the Netherlands and the next day you're in your car, and you are pulled over and tested? It was NOT against the law to smoke in Holland, and you're CERTAINLY not high after a trans-atlantic flight back to Amerikkka. This country gets creepier every day. I can only hope that everyone not doing any illegal substances, gets pulled over, tested, and becomes mighty irate at this worthless waste of time! I wish I had enough money so I could get the hell outta this retarded US of A. >_<

rick

well - scary and foretelling are really the only two things that come time.

Basically, any activist who has ever said "I smoke or have smoked Pot" will soon have a Storm Trooper, state trooper, parked down their block waiting & ready to arrest him/her under federal drugged driving laws, effectively destroying this persons ability to travel (to events, work, or the grocery store).

This is just another way to turn pot smokers into criminals and to quiet those who would argue against unjust laws.

I'll bet if they try and test for alcohol metabolites from withing days of drinking alcohol the bastard Alcohol lobbiest would have this law in their jaws already - but, this will only serve to bolster their business.

I'd like to hear NiteShifts take on this policy and to see if he may be able to expand on the Arizona Drug Driving laws. This is a very interesting topic and one that anyone who proclaims their use publicly should follow nervously.

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rick

hahaha - Thats a good one Zan!

Here's another one for ya!

Stranger: Knock Knock,
Business owner and employees: Who's there?
Stranger: Workplace urine inspectors
Business owner and employees: Great come on in! We've been looking forward to you!

Funny huh?!

This has been coming for a long time and we all deserve to be tested before we even get out of bed in the morning and put to death for drug test failure.

I mean, that is the ultimate logical end to all this madness, isn't end?

God save the Queen!

 

Hiz Highness

I hope any officer asking me to pee on a cup by the side of the road is wearing rubber boots. Since I'm bound to fail anyway I might just accidently miss that cup a few times, being so intoxicated on several-days-old metabolites and whatnot.

-HH

(If you're going to go anyway, go LARGE!)

Greenbud

Federally-funded organization who profits from widespread drug testing run by a guy who is bedfellows with the Drug Czar...

This about says it all, doesn't it????

BINGO!!!!!

It's all about the money, folks; the same as it ever was. This ain't just pork, friends, it's whole hog.

You'd better believe my congressman is getting a letter from me.

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"I believe in the near future, the government will use anti-drug hysteria to set up a police state."
-author William S. Burroughs, 1947

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SinsemilaStreet

This will be such a big boon for public transportation. Imagine taking the bus, eleveted train, or other public transportation and not having to worry about piss tests.

It will get us off our fat arses and exercise too since we will begin to ride our bicycles again!

We will begin to live life in the slow lane again tokin on public transportation.

Greenbud

You can get busted for riding a bike under the influence too.

Kannibal

****ing moronic evil greedy bastards.They can kiss my freedom loving cannabis smoking ass.

Leading this charge is the Walsh Group, a federally funded organization that develops drug testing technology and lobbies for rigid workplace drug testing programs

Ever wonder how the feds spend your tax dollars?

That's about all I can say at this time.

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Keep the wall of reality and fantasy high enough not to fall over but low enough to see the other side.