Legalized Weed Issues ....

As a LEO I'd like to weigh in. I think legalized weed is a bad idea, weed is harder to detect than alcohol just by smelling it, also weed can't particularly be seen on a breathalyzer, you need a blood test. It would be fairly dangerous because stoned drivers are slow, and can occasionally swerve in traffic. Imagine in major cities with 7 or 8 laned express ways.

 

I'm calling bollocks on you being a LEO.

1) If you can't smell weed, you need a new nose.
2) Actually, scratch my previous point on #2. If they need a blood test, so what? That requires extra training to properly administer the test. I'm all for LEO's receiving extra training!
3) Erratic driving is just as much a reason to pull someone over for suspicion of drug use as it is for alcohol use, distracted driving, or drowsy driving. Any real LEO would already know that.

 

You might want to call up Colorado and advise them.

http://www.popsci.com/science/artic...tates-how-will-police-regulate-stoned-driving

 

You might want to read your own links.

Now that there's a demand for accurate devices, research on improving available models will no doubt be underway. Before marijuana was legalized, there was no demand, thus no justification for spending research dollars on the necessary technology, and frankly, the US has more resources for medical research than the other countries.

It's amazing what a little deductive reasoning will get you.

 

Yes, I read it. Not widely available yet. Plus the levels of determination have not been legally done.

I read the links before I post them.

 

You just don't apply any thought to what you read.

Without legalization, there's no demand. Without demand, there's no justification for research. Without justification for research, there's no research funding. Without research funding, there's no research. Without research, there's piss poor equipment.

See where I'm heading with this, or shall I keep breaking it down?

 

I am not in disagreement. I saw that and much more when I read it. There has not been any demand.

But assuming there was an oral specimen test that was effective for accurately measuring THC in the bloodstream at the roadside, there's still the problem of correlating it to impairment, which is ultimately what law enforcement officers are concerned with, especially in a context where possession and use are no longer strictly prohibited.


"There's still a lot of work to be done to really tie in all those connections, to say that if you do pick up this level of a marijuana metabolite in a oral fluid specimen there is some solid scientific evidence that also indicates some degree of impairment or effects on the behavior of the individual," says Dr. Stephen Kahn, a professor of pathology and toxicologist at Loyola University's Stritch School of Medicine. "And that's harder to do than with blood ethanol."


Nonetheless, the state of both the science and the technology is improving. The tools for oral specimen detection and analysis improve each and every year, Huestis says, and her own lab recently folded trials of a new portable oral specimen diagnostic into experiments there. Under controlled conditions in which the THC levels of dosed subjects were being tested independently in the lab this new portable device showed impressive efficacy, Huestis says, with very low incidence of false negatives or false positives.


Huestis thinks we'll see these kinds of tests used by law enforcement in the U.S. within 3-5 years. Kahn is less willing to put a firm projection on the adoption of such technologies, but he does believe that the science will eventually become good enough to gain the confidence of the courts and law enforcement.
"I think it's absolutely going to happen," Kahn says. "But I'm just not sure how long it will take."

 

I disagree.

There are plenty of visible indicators to raise suspicion of drugged driving. All that's missing is field equipment that provides the same accuracy as lab equipment on the oral swabs. That said, the driver can be cited pending the results of a lab test and have the citation dropped if it returns clean (until field tests catch up).

With proper motivation from the government and medical communities, I don't think it would take 3-5 years to provide an accurate tool. I believe the 3-5 year estimate is with current research. Increased demand would require increased resources.

 

Most PDs don't have funds or equipment or place to have or pay for blood testing machines. My post has said machines but 9 times out of 10 you take them to a hospital, to administer said test you have to be at minimum an RN. You must not be a trucker very long either, if you were you'd know officers running radar are generally stationary, not the all seeing eye. When I'm not running radar I'm investigating accidents, transporting prisoners, in court, filing paperwork,or commuting to and from. While commuting I like to look around, but I also like to pay attention to the road so I won't become an ODMP statistic or cost the taxpayers at minimum 30,000!