Hydrolife Magazine October/November 2016 (USA Edition)

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Do We Need Cannabis Breathalyzers?
Roadside breathalyzer tests for alcohol have been a useful
tool for law enforcement to remove impaired drivers from
our roads. Should similar measures be applied to drivers who
take cannabis? Alex Rea explains why he doesn’t think so.
by Alex Rea
It’s no secret that cannabis is more
available and its use is increasing.
With increasing use of cannabis, governments,
police and anti-drunk driving
organizations are calling for strictly
enforced low limits on cannabis use
while driving. Numerous tech companies
are rushing to develop roadside breathalyzer
and testing technologies capable of
identifying minute amounts of cannabis
metabolites. The undeniable fact is that
testing positive for THC is not the same
as being impaired. Recent research has
confirmed that specific drug levels cannot
reliably indicate driver impairment.
Caught up in the effort to curb drugged
driving are the legitimate patients using
cannabis to improve their lives. These
patients are being put at risk of being
criminalized with little evidence of harm
to road users or themselves. States such
as Washington and Colorado have set
legal limits for concentration of THC in
blood while driving.
Many lives have been lost due to the
impairment of alcohol while driving.
Drinking and driving has been reduced
in large part due to public-service efforts
and strict enforcement of roadside alcohol
testing. Perhaps that’s what makes
roadside cannabis testing so appealing.
The easy reaction is to equate alcohol
and cannabis. Driving under the
influence of alcohol leads to deaths
in a straightforward and predictable
way; the effects of alcohol lead to
impairments in both decision making
and motor skills. Evidence shows that
alcohol leads drivers to drive faster and
with less control and reaction time
leading to dangerous consequences.
The same cannot be said for
cannabis. Research conducted by
the NHTSA has concluded that when
adjusting for other factors such as age
and gender, THC presence alone poses
no statistical increase in crashes.
Breathalyzers work for alcohol
because there is a consistent
relationship between blood alcohol
level, impairment and levels
detected by the testing equipment.
The relationship is so strong that these
technologies have stood the test of
litigation to prove to judges that beyond
reasonable doubt, they are accurate. It’s
easy to use the same logic of alcohol to
apply to cannabis.
The profits from the company that successfully
produces a breathalyzer technology
could be immense; the potential
market could be every police jurisdiction
with a legal limit or a will to root out
cannabis users. The consensus has been
that it is not a question of if but when we
will introduce a roadside breathalyzer.
As our society figures out how to deal
with cannabis use on the roads, there is
still a glaring question looming over this
issue: are cannabis breathalyzers the
only way to have safe roads?
Before the use of Breath Alcohol
Content testers, there was the field
sobriety test; a simple test to help law
enforcement determine if an individual’s
cognitive and spacial perceptions are
so impaired that driving is dangerous
and therefore illegal. There is no way to
have perfect road safety with no crashes,
so there may be an argument for using
traditional methods to judge impairment
rather than a catch all limit which will
criminalize people unjustifiably.
The main issue with drug impairment
testing is that it is a more complex
chemical and neurological relationship
than alcohol. Five nanograms of THC
could have no effect or a strong effect
depending on the user. An experienced
medical user may be unaffected by
such an amount and be a safer driver
because they are not in pain. States are
trying to set a limit on cannabis use to
discourage impaired driving but there
is little scientific evidence to support
the use of a strict limit for any drug.
The most reliable way to ascertain
impairment is the traditional method
of a field sobriety test (with reasonable
grounds to conduct the investigation).
The difficult yet logical conclusion is
that a roadside breathalyzer may be an
improper way to do policing. It may cost
police forces too many resources, likely
won’t improve public safety and would
unnecessarily impact innocent drivers
with legal costs and disruptions to life.
Alex Rea is vice-president of Homegrown Hydroponics in Toronto, Ontario, and the
co-founder of Phytomedical, a cannabis consulting clinic. As a patient, advocate and
business person in the cannabis industry, Alex has a keen understanding of the political,
economic and social hurdles that underpin cannabis as medicine in North America.
76 grow. heal. live. enjoy.
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