Vermont State Police Lt. John Flannigan was at his son’s basketball practice after hours on December 1 when he got a text message, asking if he was available to return to work to test a man suspected of drugged driving.
According to police, they’d gotten calls about a driver stopped in traffic on busy Route 15 in Jericho that night. The vehicle’s headlights were off. Troopers suspected Kyle M. Murphy of drugged driving and brought him in.
Flannigan is one of 35 Vermont law-enforcement officers qualified to screen drivers for illegal substances. Police can’t process a suspected drugged driver without such a consultation.
Flannigan arrived at the Williston station a half hour later and took Murphy through a 12-step process — a coincidence of terminology that is not lost on the troopers. Officers who share his expertise carry laminated cards outlining how to detect telltale signs of impairment. Tense muscles, for example, can indicate a person is on stimulants; the reverse, depressants. Flannigan took Murphy’s pulse, examined the size of his pupils in three light settings, checked his blood pressure and looked up his nose for traces of drugs.
After almost an hour, the 24-year veteran of the Vermont State Police who’s been a drug-recognition expert since 2005 concluded that Murphy was under the influence of both a depressant and marijuana.
Police customarily request that suspects go to a hospital for a blood test to confirm the drug-recognition officer’s findings. Murphy said no. So state police charged him with possession of a controlled substance — they found prescription drugs in the car — and refusal to submit to a blood test.
When troopers suspect a driver is drunk, they can screen him or her on the side of the road using quick and easy-to-use breathalyzer devices, then follow up at the station with a more sophisticated DataMaster evaluation, the results of which hold up in court. Any cop can administer such sobriety tests.
Testing for drugged driving is not as simple. There is no established standard akin to the .08 percent blood alcohol content that indicates a driver has had too much. In drugged-driving cases, a specially trained officer must observe drivers in a controlled setting to conclude if they are under the influence.
The potential impact on highway safety has lawmakers worried as they wade into the 2016 legislative session and a debate about legalizing the recreational use of marijuana.
Testing drivers for overconsumption of alcohol is a well-known process, said Sen. Dick Mazza (D-Grand Isle), who runs a general store in Colchester that sells wine and beer. As for marijuana, he said, “I don’t even know what it looks like.”
“I’d have to be convinced that what we have in place is workable,” said Mazza, who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee. “I don’t think that’s going to be a simple thing.”
Supporters of legalization argue that it’s unrealistic to ignore the fact that Vermonters are already using marijuana illegally.
“People are smoking pot and driving now, and I believe a regulated market will give us more ability to regulate what they’re smoking,” said Gov. Peter Shumlin, a legalization supporter.
Rep. Chris Pearson (P-Burlington), sponsor of a bill to legalize marijuana, said he doesn’t think angst over drugged-driving testing will derail the legislation. “Those are legitimate concerns,” Pearson said. “I have them today, and I’ll have them in a taxed and regulated world.”
Shumlin, who is heading into his last year as governor, also downplayed the testing challenge, though he acknowledged there might be other barriers to legalizing marijuana next year. “We’re still trying to figure out whether this is the right time to do it,” he said, calling for a phased-in “Vermont-style approach” to putting pot on par with beer.
What does that mean? Holding off on legalizing the sale of edible marijuana products — problems arose in Colorado because portion sizes weren’t clearly marked. The governor was otherwise vague, noting that he’s still monitoring how legalization is working in other states.
He’s not alone. Glenn Davis, highway safety manager for the Colorado Department of Transportation, regularly gets calls from legislators, police and reporters in other states seeking lessons from the first state to legalize. Davis warned that pinpointing the impact of legalization is difficult.
Are his state’s roads less safe today than they were before legalization in 2014? “I can’t say,” Davis answered. “I think in five years, we’ll be able to have a snapshot.” He noted that statistics don’t date back far enough to establish clear trends.
“Data is challenging,” Davis said. “Our fatalities are kind of on the uptick, but I truly cannot say marijuana is a factor in them.”
Flannigan, who is the Vermont State Police traffic operations commander and coordinator of the state’s drug-recognition experts, declined to offer his opinion about legalization. Although he said he’d leave that to higher-ranking state officials, his wariness is evident.
“Drugs are much different than alcohol,” Flannigan said. “With alcohol, we’ve got centuries of research and data. One drug could affect you differently than it affects me.”
Supporters of legalization contend that driving under the influence of marijuana is less dangerous than driving drunk. A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study released in February supports that claim.
Trooper Jerry Partin, another certified drug-recognition expert with the state police, said his field experience suggests otherwise. Marijuana “can be a very dangerous drug with somebody behind the wheel,” he said.
A September report by the Rocky Mountain High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a group formed to combat drug trafficking, bolsters that argument, stating that marijuana-related traffic fatalities were up 32 percent in Colorado after the state legalized recreational use of pot in 2014. As an aside, however, the report’s authors admit, “This report will cite data sets with terms such as ‘marijuana-related’ or ‘tested positive for marijuana.’ That does not necessarily prove that marijuana was the cause of the incident.”
In other words, if alcohol or another factor was the overriding cause of an accident but the driver had some signs of having used marijuana, the crash would count as marijuana-related.
“It’s a very misleading report,” said Matt Simon, New England political director and legislative analyst of the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project. He noted that Tom Gorman, the director of the group behind the report, was a leading opponent of legalization.
As authorities look for information, they are exploring new potential solutions for policing. Until July, Flannigan was overseeing a pilot project experimenting with a roadside saliva test for drug impairment. Although he has yet to publish the results of the yearlong effort, he said all indications are that the $25 test is as accurate as more expensive and difficult-to-obtain blood and urine tests.
The saliva-testing machine is the size of a toaster. The suspect puts a plastic tube under his or her tongue for 60 to 90 seconds, swishing it back and forth to collect saliva. The trooper inserts the tube into the machine, which churns out a receipt showing levels of seven drugs, including marijuana.
If this test was available for regular use in Vermont, it might ease the fears of some legislators reluctant to legalize pot.
Rep. Dave Potter (D-Clarendon) doesn’t support legalization, out of concern it will increase marijuana use among vulnerable young people. But he has introduced legislation that would make the saliva test standard for Vermont police in drugged-driving cases. He hopes his bill will pass regardless of what happens with pot laws. A former driver-education instructor in Rutland, he said, “I think it will make our roads safer.”
In Colorado, nearly two years after legalization, police rely instead on the state’s 250 drug-recognition experts, Davis said. That state is training more of them, using revenue raised from marijuana sales taxes, Davis said. He recommended that other states considering legalization do the same.
Colorado also uses marijuana money for public education about drugged driving — including posting signs in marijuana stores warning people against operating a vehicle while under the influence. Said Davis: “People didn’t know you could get a DUI from marijuana.”
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This article appears in Dec 9-15, 2015.
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Here’s the problem that enforcement still hasn’t really addressed: Being able to immediately quantify the level of THC in one’s bloodstream still does NOT provide information about impairment and someone’s ability to safely operate a vehicle. Two people could have the same nanogram limit reading while one is fully functional and the other is too incapacitated to drive. This is why medical patients (who have high tolerance and are taking cannabis more frequently) object so strongly to using nanogram limits, however calculated.
It’s understandable that law enforcement wants a reliable quantifiable figure, and it’s realistic that they should have more capacity to enforce the expanding of cannabis laws…the bottom line is that the best way to keep our roads safe is for well-trained police to continue to be vigilant for signs of impaired (from whatever substance) drivers and have enough drug recognition training experts.
Legislators can designate potential cannabis-derived revenues to enforcement for more DRE training and some to public defenders–at this point in the discussion, it’s not worth expending too much time and energy looking for a magical technology bullet.
The stoned driving thing is a red herring. The government’s own studies have proven that cannabis does not increase the risk of fatality. E.g. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24411797
“When the drug-positive variable was separated into marijuana and other drugs, only the latter was found to contribute significantly to crash risk.”
There you go. It’s a non issue. FURTHERMORE
“In all cases, the contribution of drugs other than alcohol to crash risk was significantly lower than that produced by alcohol.”
So really we should be talking about our ongoing issues with drunk driving (and opiate driving) and stop making stoned driving out to be a big problem when, clearly, it is not.
If he drove in a dangerous manner there would be a problem. He probably wasn’t. The supreme court has ruled that a suspect cannot be held for a period waiting for a drug sniffing dog, I would guess that the same ruling would apply to this case. This case should get thrown out on those grounds alone. This issue is a red herring. Law enforcement enjoys the powers that the drug war has given to them. Vermont should be a leader in personal rights, have we lost our backbone on that?
Until we learn how to identify, prosecute, and keep stoned drivers off the road, no state should legalize another intoxicant. Marijuana impairment is unlike alcohol impairment in many ways, so tools useful for alcohol impairment are ineffective for marijuana impairment. In this sense, writer Eli has it right. The problem is made worse by public misunderstanding the science behind impairment. For example, writer Laughlin’s referencing http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24411797 to say it proves cannabis does not increase the risk of fatality is flat out wrong. Failure to find a link is not the same as finding there is no link, particularly when using a tool (FARS) that was never designed to measure DUID, as NHTSA pointed out last year. Marijuana impairment is less pronounced than alcohol impairment, but it still harms and kills people. Scientific studies prove this, but so do the victims of impaired drivers who confessed their guilt to driving under the influence of marijuana. Burying your head in the sand will not make the facts go away!
I am a registered patient and I know that I no longer experience a “high” when medicating with cannabis. Per Se limits are simply not and indication of disorientation in a habituated user like me.
“Saliva testing is a newer, less proven technology. The sensitivity of saliva tests is not well established in the case of marijuana. In theory, they are supposed to detect recent use, but this may range from several hours to over a day. They are supposed to detect secretions from inside the oral tissues that cannot be washed out with mouthwash. Because they are less intrusive than blood or urine tests, the industry has been eager to develop saliva tests. Due to reliability problems, they have yet to gain acceptance in the U.S., but they have come into use in some other countries, such as Australia. An international study of various onsite saliva tests concluded that no device was reliable enough to be recommended for roadside screening of drivers (Rosita Project, 2003-2006).”
The full report can be found here.
http://www.canorml.org/healthfacts/drugtestguide/drugtestdetection.html
This is definitely just one more pathetic attempt for law enforcement to keep their sticky little fingers in the weed game. I wish lawmakers would just do their jobs and enact the will of the people. It is getting ridiculous. If, how, why, or when people smoke pot is not changing here. Whether people drive stoned is not changing either. The only thing we want changed is the LAW. It is YOU that is undergoing a change Government, NOT the people. Do your job. Get it done. Life will go on.
One more thing to add to crashes, loss of life and medical cost,,,,,,,,,,
The ignorance and fear mongering concerning Marijuana never ceases to amaze me. We’ve got one officer saying, “Drugs are different than alcohol.” Alcohol is a drug sir…one that impairs drivers FAR more than marijuana no matter how you want to slice it, and saying that we know more about how alcohol affects people is a feeble attempt at justifying why it’s okay to have a beer but not okay to use marijuana. We have a state senator hesitant to vote for legalization because he “doesn’t even know what it looks like”…isn’t it his job to educate himself on the issue and make an informed decision? It’s 2015, we understand that Marijuana is by any measure less harmful to the body than alcohol, the fact the one is legal and accepted while the other is not is due to decades of misinformation and antiquated and ineffectual laws. As another commenter stated above, the traffic safety issue is a bit of a red herring as well. Everybody wants to equate driving stoned with driving drunk in some way when the two are in no way alike…The fact is there is no solid information to suggest that legalizing marijuana creates an epidemic of highway safety incidents regardless of the methods used to test. I’m certainly not condoning impaired driving in any form, but this pervasive fear of stoned drivers on Vermont roadways is not a reason to resist doing the right thing…legalizing and regulating marijuana.