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MARIJUANA MOMENT
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT RESEARCHER SAYS ‘WE MAY NEED BETTER TESTS’ FOR MARIJUANA
IMPAIRMENT, QUESTIONING ‘PER SE’ THC LIMITS FOR DRIVING
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SCIENCE & HEALTH
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT RESEARCHER SAYS ‘WE MAY NEED BETTER TESTS’ FOR MARIJUANA
IMPAIRMENT, QUESTIONING ‘PER SE’ THC LIMITS FOR DRIVING
Published
1 day ago
on
February 21, 2024
By
Kyle Jaeger
A Justice Department research says states may need to “get away from that idea”
that marijuana impairment can be tested based on the concentration of THC in a
person’s system.
Frances Scott, a physical scientist at the National Institute of Justice (NIJ)
Office of Investigative and Forensic Sciences under DOJ, discussed the
challenges of cannabis impairment testing in an episode of the Justice Today
podcast that was posted late last month.
Scott questioned the efficacy of setting “per se” THC limits for driving that
some states have enacted, making it so a person can be charged with driving
while impaired based on the concentration of cannabis components in their
system. Ultimately, there may not be a way to assess impairment from THC like we
do for alcohol, she said.
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One complication, Scott said, is that “if you have chronic users versus
infrequent users, they have very different concentrations correlated to
different effects.”
“So the same effect level, if you will, will be correlated with a very different
concentration of THC in the blood of a chronic user versus an infrequent user,”
she said.
That issue was also examined in a recent federally funded study that identified
two different methods of more accurately testing for recent THC use that
accounts for the fact that metabolites of the cannabinoid can stay present in a
person’s system for weeks or months after consumption.
“The problem is we’ve funded this research that pretty conclusively shows that
the THC concentration in the blood is not particularly well-correlated with
impairment for driving,” Scott said. “One of the outstanding questions is trying
to figure out, is there a good proxy, a good metric, that we can use?”
“If it’s not delta-9 THC, is there another one of those cannabinoids that is a
good metric, or do we need to kind of move away from that? With alcohol, we per
se laws—that’s the 0.08 [blood alcohol content], right?” she said. “If we
demonstrate that your blood alcohol content is over 0.08, that’s all I have to
do to prove impairment, right? That’s also well-understood.”
“Maybe what we need to do is kind of get away from that idea that we can sort of
have a number when it comes to marijuana and have that mean that you’re
impaired,” the researcher said. “And it may get into some different types of
measures than we’re used to doing. So maybe it’s not a blood measure or a breath
measure.”
While the Justice Department is continuing to support research into the
development of a possible breathalyzer test for cannabis, there’s also grant
funding going to alternative screening options—including saliva tests and
peripheral vision assessments to determine if certain eye functioning could be
associated with impairment from THC.
“We may need better tests,” Scott—who has also recently discussed the seemingly
arbitrary way that Congress arrived as a 0.3 percent THC limit to define
federally legal hemp—said.
The THC impairment question has been a major focus for lawmakers and the
research community, particularly as it concerns driving laws.
Last summer, a congressional report for a Transportation, Housing and Urban
Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) bill said that the House Appropriations
Committee “continues to support the development of an objective standard to
measure marijuana impairment and a related field sobriety test to ensure highway
safety.”
Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) sent a letter to the Department of Transportation
(DOT) in 2022 seeking an update on that status of a federal report into research
barriers that are inhibiting the development of a standardized test for
marijuana impairment on the roads. The department was required to complete the
report by November under a large-scale infrastructure bill that President Joe
Biden signed, but it missed that deadline and it’s unclear how much longer it
will take.
A study published in 2019 concluded that those who drive at the legal THC
limit—which is typically between two to five nanograms of THC per milliliter of
blood—were not statistically more likely to be involved in an accident compared
to people who haven’t used marijuana.
Separately, the Congressional Research Service in 2019 determined that while
“marijuana consumption can affect a person’s response times and motor
performance … studies of the impact of marijuana consumption on a driver’s risk
of being involved in a crash have produced conflicting results, with some
studies finding little or no increased risk of a crash from marijuana usage.”
Another study from 2022 found that smoking CBD-rich marijuana had “no
significant impact” on driving ability, despite the fact that all study
participants exceeded the per se limit for THC in their blood.
> Marijuana Tax Revenue Should Fund Education And Housing, Not Police And
> Prisons, Voters Say In New Poll
Photo courtesy of Martin Alonso.
Marijuana Moment is made possible with support from readers. If you rely on our
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Kyle Jaeger
Kyle Jaeger is Marijuana Moment's Sacramento-based managing editor. His work has
also appeared in High Times, VICE and attn.
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