Colorado Governor Believes Cannabis Deliveries can Reduce Impaired Driving

[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]A[/dropcap]t the National Governors Association’s (NGA) 2019 NGA Summer Meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis explained how licensing cannabis delivery companies can prevent drugged driving situations. The NGA members, however, didn’t entirely agree at how to prevent drugged driving.

Marijuana Moment reports that Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey brought up the need for ways to deter drivers from driving under the influence of cannabis. Representatives from the Centers for Disease Control and National Traffic Safety Administration spoke more about the dangers of legalization.

But then it was Gov. Polis’ turn to speak, and he didn’t hesitate to defend Colorado’s liberal approach to cannabis—including the state’s approach to cannabis delivery services. “Colorado has long been a leader in cannabis reform,” the governor said. “Our new efforts include allowing delivery of marijuana, so we’re moving away from the risk of people driving while impaired by having legal delivery to people’s homes.”

Last May, Polis signed a bill to allow licensed medical cannabis stores to deliver cannabis to their patients. “We just passed the enabling legislation around that, beginning with medical marijuana and then moving to full regulated sale of marijuana so people exercise—in our state, it’s a constitutional right to use marijuana in their home—[that right] without the risk of them using it somewhere else and driving,” he said. “We’re really looking at a wide variety of tactics to decrease that risk.”

Last November, Polis was elected governor of Colorado, and leading the state forward with cannabis was one of his campaign’s biggest selling points. After all, Polis was supported by NORML during the campaign trail. In May, Gov. Polis signed six bills that expand the state’s current cannabis industry. Last month, Gov. Polis released an online tool to track his cannabis-related accomplishments. Colorado’s approach involved the theory that people consume cannabis on the road because of the lack of the number of appropriate areas in which they can consume cannabis.