A Note from the Newsroom
The legal status of medical marijuana is currently one of Montana’s most hotly-debated and divisive issues. From those who view the drug as legitimate pain-management therapy to those who see it as nothing more than an excuse for addiction, opinions surrounding the drug are as different as black and white.
Fueling these divergent opinions is the frustration of a gray area. If medical marijuana continues to exist in Montana, who deserves to be a cardholder? How much marijuana should a cardholder be able to purchase or grow? And how long after ingesting marijuana should we consider it safe, and legal, to drive a car?
That last question was at the heart of last week’s district court trial. The defendant, William Maus, 24, admitted under oath to smoking pot about six hours before causing a fatal car accident. While he did not obtain a medical marijuana card until after the accident, Maus said he relied on the drug to ease chronic pain from an ACL injury.
Several hours after the accident, Maus complied with a state trooper’s request to draw a blood sample. The results showed THC, the psychoactive component in cannabis, present in his blood at five nanograms per milliliter.
Law enforcement and county prosecution presented this quantifiable, concrete number to the jury. The problem? Defining what that number means.
Through expert testimony, the prosecution established that 5 ng/ml has, in the past, been proven to cause impairment. But unlike .08 blood alcohol concentration, the nationally accepted norm to determine alcohol intoxication, no widely accepted standard exists for pot.
Deputy County Attorney, Jessica Cole-Hodgkinson said she realized early on that she could not win her case based on the blood test alone. Instead, she attempted to prove that the defendant’s behavior behind the wheel, possibly influenced by his marijuana use, was irresponsible. Although the prosecution presented a compelling case, without a clear definition of intoxication, it was not enough evidence to convince a jury that Maus was guilty of driving under the influence.
Defining this standard is a problem facing legislators and voters in all 15 states, and the District of Columbia, which have legalized medical marijuana.
Colorado House Bill 1261, which is currently making its way through the Colorado Senate, would use 5 ng/ml as the standard for impairment. If approved, it would be the most liberal standard in the country, with other states setting the cut-off at 2 ng/ml.
Even as state legislators grapple to determine a numerical standard, there are those who argue that the effort is pointless — that marijuana and alcohol intoxication are not analogous.
Kris Hermes, spokesperson for Americans for Safe Access, a non-profit dedicated ensuring safe and legal access to medical cannabis for therapeutic uses, suggested that metabolic testing is not particularly meaningful when it comes to pot.
“There are tests that focus on driver impairment rather than drug levels in the body,” Hermes said.
And while Hermes emphasized that he does not condone driving under the influence, he added that very few car crashes, especially fatal crashes, can be solely attributed to a driver impaired by marijuana.
“In the rare case that they do come up, and I can count them on one hand, there is usually some other thing going on — for example other drugs,” Hermes said. “There exists a sensationalist approach to condemn something that’s not really a problem. Whereas with alcohol, for example, you can track the thousands and thousands of fatalities.”
Hermes may be right, that many accidents involving marijuana also include other factors, but what about those few, rare cases like Maus’s, where justice hinges on determining if marijuana really was the most important factor?
Justice Court Judge, Chuck Wall, suggested that the solution to determining impairment, here in Lake County, may begin with tweaks to law enforcement procedure.
“It’s a unique law enforcement problem,” Wall said. “Right now law enforcement is keyed toward recognizing alcohol impairment, and it can be more difficult to recognize the influence of drugs.”
Wall added that in order to recognize marijuana impairment, police would need additional training and equipment, two things difficult to come by on a tight budget.
For the moment, the future of medical marijuana in Montana is uncertain. But whether or not Initiative 148 is repealed, medical marijuana and the questions that it raises for the justice system, don’t seem to be going away any time soon.
Contact reporter Lisa Broadt by e-mail at reporter3@leaderadvertiser.com.