Impaired Driving Remains Hurdle For Legal Weed in New York

The 129 pages of New York’s draft “Marihuana Regulation and Taxation Act” were released this past weekend, detailing comprehensive plans for making New York the 15th state to legalize adult-use cannabis.

A serious area of caution remains: the roads.

At issue is whether to continue to treat driving while impaired by marijuana as a misdemeanor or a traffic infraction. While the bill requires state police to hire more “drug recognition experts,” a special program that trains officers to identify signs of impairment based on ingestion of different substances, there isn’t yet the equivalent for tokers and smokers of a breathalyzer test like what exists for possibly drunk drivers. Instead, the bill requires the state’s Health Commissioner to pick an institution to conduct a study of the best way to detect cannabis impairment, with conclusions due before Dec. 31, 2022.

Keep a look out for an updated blog post on this issue as more details become available.

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts…