Evidence of pot smoking weeks earlier enough for DUI charge, Arizona prosecutor says [View all]
Source: Arizona Daily Star
A prosecutor argued Tuesday there’s nothing wrong with charging a motorist who smoked marijuana up to a month earlier with driving while drugged.
In arguments to the Arizona Supreme Court, Susan Luder, a deputy Maricopa County attorney, acknowledged that Carboxy-THC, a secondary metabolite of marijuana, can show up in blood tests for a month after someone has used the drug. And she did not dispute the concession of her own expert witness that the presence of that metabolite does not indicate someone is impaired.
But Luder told the justices the Legislature is legally entitled to declare that a positive blood test for Carboxy-THC can be used to prosecute someone who, if convicted, can lose a driver’s license for a year.
... The court ruling affects whether any of the 40,000 Arizonans who are legal medical marijuana users will effectively be banned from driving, given how long metabolite remains in the system. And it also makes potential criminals out of anyone else who drives and also has used marijuana in the last 30 days, including those who might be visiting from Washington or Colorado, where recreational use of the drug is legal.
Read more: http://azstarnet.com/news/state-and-regional/evidence-of-pot-smoking-weeks-earlier-enough-for-dui-charge/article_e109f472-19a1-5546-bd09-c2745c9e0b9b.html
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