Anti Federalist
04-19-2016, 09:19 PM
State asks UCSD to find ways to detect stoned drivers
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/apr/17/ucsd-marijuana-sobrietytest/
UC San Diego will try to develop a faster, better way to determine whether drivers are high on marijuana through a study prompted by the possibility that California voters will approve the recreational use of pot in November.
The $1.8 million project was commissioned by the Legislature, which said sobriety tests currently used by law enforcement aren’t ideal for spotting drivers impaired by marijuana.
Researchers at the university plan to use driving simulators to study people’s behavior while they’re high on pot and formulate sobriety exercises that motorists would have to pass on a hand-held device, such as an iPad.
Studies of this type are uncommon in the United States.
The federal government classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, meaning that it has no accepted medical use and possesses a high potential for abuse. As a result of this categorization, scientists said it can take as long as 18 months to obtain federally sanctioned marijuana for research.
But the government is under pressure to reclassify marijuana because studies of pot have identified some clear medicinal benefits. Nationally, there also has been growing societal acceptance of the drug for medical and recreational uses.
Political experts said a measure to legalize recreational marijuana in California is likely to qualify for the Nov. 8 ballot, and the prospect of the nation’s most populous state approving that measure is raising questions about everything from “drugged driving” to where pot would be sold. Such issues haven’t been fully resolved, even though California voters approved medical marijuana in 1996.
“We’re not trying to punish people; we’re trying to prevent accidents,” Assemblyman Tom Lackey, R-Palmdale, who was a California Highway Patrol officer for 28 years, said of the sobriety-screening project at UC San Diego.
“We need roadside tools that detect whether a driver is impaired by marijuana. This program could have national implications,” he added.
At present, law-enforcement officers in the state have other options for assessing whether a driver has been impaired by marijuana.
They can administer a field sobriety test, which requires drivers to perform certain physical and mental tasks including standing on one leg and counting backward. That evaluation method has proven to be very useful in identifying people who have been drinking alcohol, but scientists said it doesn’t always reveal whether a person is high on pot.
In some cases, an officer can subject a motorist to a blood test, which can reveal the presence of THC, the main active ingredient in marijuana. But this analysis doesn’t gauge exactly when a person used the drug, and the level of THC doesn’t necessarily correlate to how high an individual is.
The UC San Diego study will aim to help clarify matters.
“We want to be able to determine if a motorist is impaired by marijuana, how impaired they are and how long that impairment will last,” said Igor Grant, chair of psychiatry at the university and director of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research.
“We also would like to measure the strength of the marijuana and how the potency relates to impairment,” he added.
One of Grant’s colleagues, psychiatry professor Thomas Marcotte, said: “The ultimate goal is to find a way to determine if a motorist is impaired by marijuana by examining various body fluids (blood, saliva, breath) and cognitive testing that could be done at the roadside.”
Barth Wilsey, a UC San Diego physician who is also involved in the study, said “People tend to experience distorted time and have problems with memory when stoned. We aim to see whether these and other marijuana-related impairments might be detectable with tests on an iPad that could be used in the field by law-enforcement officers.”
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/apr/17/ucsd-marijuana-sobrietytest/
UC San Diego will try to develop a faster, better way to determine whether drivers are high on marijuana through a study prompted by the possibility that California voters will approve the recreational use of pot in November.
The $1.8 million project was commissioned by the Legislature, which said sobriety tests currently used by law enforcement aren’t ideal for spotting drivers impaired by marijuana.
Researchers at the university plan to use driving simulators to study people’s behavior while they’re high on pot and formulate sobriety exercises that motorists would have to pass on a hand-held device, such as an iPad.
Studies of this type are uncommon in the United States.
The federal government classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, meaning that it has no accepted medical use and possesses a high potential for abuse. As a result of this categorization, scientists said it can take as long as 18 months to obtain federally sanctioned marijuana for research.
But the government is under pressure to reclassify marijuana because studies of pot have identified some clear medicinal benefits. Nationally, there also has been growing societal acceptance of the drug for medical and recreational uses.
Political experts said a measure to legalize recreational marijuana in California is likely to qualify for the Nov. 8 ballot, and the prospect of the nation’s most populous state approving that measure is raising questions about everything from “drugged driving” to where pot would be sold. Such issues haven’t been fully resolved, even though California voters approved medical marijuana in 1996.
“We’re not trying to punish people; we’re trying to prevent accidents,” Assemblyman Tom Lackey, R-Palmdale, who was a California Highway Patrol officer for 28 years, said of the sobriety-screening project at UC San Diego.
“We need roadside tools that detect whether a driver is impaired by marijuana. This program could have national implications,” he added.
At present, law-enforcement officers in the state have other options for assessing whether a driver has been impaired by marijuana.
They can administer a field sobriety test, which requires drivers to perform certain physical and mental tasks including standing on one leg and counting backward. That evaluation method has proven to be very useful in identifying people who have been drinking alcohol, but scientists said it doesn’t always reveal whether a person is high on pot.
In some cases, an officer can subject a motorist to a blood test, which can reveal the presence of THC, the main active ingredient in marijuana. But this analysis doesn’t gauge exactly when a person used the drug, and the level of THC doesn’t necessarily correlate to how high an individual is.
The UC San Diego study will aim to help clarify matters.
“We want to be able to determine if a motorist is impaired by marijuana, how impaired they are and how long that impairment will last,” said Igor Grant, chair of psychiatry at the university and director of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research.
“We also would like to measure the strength of the marijuana and how the potency relates to impairment,” he added.
One of Grant’s colleagues, psychiatry professor Thomas Marcotte, said: “The ultimate goal is to find a way to determine if a motorist is impaired by marijuana by examining various body fluids (blood, saliva, breath) and cognitive testing that could be done at the roadside.”
Barth Wilsey, a UC San Diego physician who is also involved in the study, said “People tend to experience distorted time and have problems with memory when stoned. We aim to see whether these and other marijuana-related impairments might be detectable with tests on an iPad that could be used in the field by law-enforcement officers.”