California Gives Up On Asserting Cannabis DUI Law

Roberto Ventre

California is currently in an odd limbo between having
liberal medical cannabis laws and full-scale legalization, and as a result,
they are always introducing new legislation to deal with the ever-changing policies.
However, it seems that for the time being, state legislators have given up on
trying to introduce a cannabis DUI law.

According to a recent San
Francisco Weekly article, this
was the first round of bills in a while to not include the proposed cannabis DUI
law, probably because the last two that were proposed failed. The reason that
there is such opposition to these laws is that they would criminalize those who
are completely sober but have cannabis in their system from days ago, since
there is currently still no such thing as a cannabis breathalyzer that can
determine if a driver is actually “impaired.” The existing tests are only able
to detect levels of cannabis that can stay in the system up to six days after
use, so clearly this is not a good way to truly gauge a driver’s sobriety.

Also, there is no provable link between increased cannabis
use and car accident fatalities. In fact, these numbers have decreased despite
the rise in cannabis use due to recent state legalization, implying either
there is no correlation, or that people are drinking less because they now have
an alternative.

According to California NORML director Dale Gieringer, any
proposed tests are not a fair way to see if the driver is in fact impaired, and
the best way to go would be to implement a roadside breathalyzer station. “I
think [the legislators] figured out that there’s not good evidence for it. The
more we look at it, it’s not the scientific way to go,” he told San Francisco Weekly. “We need
realistic tests for impairment, instead of spending all this time measuring
chemicals in the system.”