Gov. Charlie Baker has been pushing for legislation he says would give “law enforcement more tools to keep our roads safe from impaired drivers.”
John Amabile, president of the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, used other words to describe the bill: “a classic use of nonscientific junk science to potentially cause a person to be convicted of a serious crime.”
When recreational marijuana was legalized by a 2016 ballot question, the tagline of the legalization campaign was “regulate marijuana like alcohol.” A special commission was formed to explore ways to update the state’s drunk driving laws to address marijuana use, and Baker has been advocating for passage of their recommendations. A legislative committee recently sent Baker’s bill to study, effectively killing it for the second time.
Impaired driving due to any substance is already illegal. Baker’s bill would impose an automatic license suspension on someone who refuses to take a roadside drug test, as is already the law if someone refuses a breathalyzer test. It would direct judges to accept as a fact that marijuana impairs driving, among other provisions.
Speaking on this week’s Codcast, Amabile and Dr. Staci Gruber, director of the Marijuana Investigations for Neuroscientific Discovery program at Harvard’s McLean Hospital, explained why treating marijuana like alcohol is not so simple.
For alcohol, someone who has a blood alcohol level of 0.08 percent on a breathalyzer test is considered impaired. There is no similar test for marijuana. “Cannabis is not alcohol. Cannabis is complicated,” Gruber said. “And in terms of the ways in which people use and the very, very long half-life of cannabis means that we are going to detect the presence of its metabolites.”
For example, Delta 9 THC, an intoxicating part of the marijuana plant, can be detected in someone’s body for a month after they used it – long after the point the person is no longer impaired. Some people might use non-intoxicating products, which can still be detected in their blood. “That’s a huge distinguishing fact – the difference between using something and being intoxicated or impaired,” Gruber said. “There is no empirically sound metric at this point that ties the level of impairment to cannabis use.”
Today, the police rely heavily on field tests performed by specially-trained drug recognition experts, who ask drivers to complete certain tasks. But a recent study by Massachusetts General Hospital researchers, aimed at testing new portable brain-scanning technology that could be used to detect marijuana impairment, found that drug recognition experts actually produced false positives in 34 percent of subjects.
“That means more than a third of your folks are going to be incorrectly classified or characterized as those who are impaired,” Gruber said. “That’s a problem.”
“Is there a role for individuals to be able to assess real world folks in real world situations? Absolutely,” Gruber said. “Are we there yet with regard to their ability to do this in a very valid way that is reliable over time? I don’t think so.”
For now, Gruber said, she believes education is key to stopping people from driving while impaired – reminding people of the dangers of driving while high and ensuring, for example, that everyone who buys a marijuana edible knows how long it takes for the intoxicating effects to kick in.
“What doesn’t need to be done is to convict innocent people based on shoddy and unreliable so-called scientific evidence,” Amabile added.
Baker has portrayed the bill as urgently needed. He named the latest version of it after State Trooper Thomas Clardy, who was fatally struck by a driver who had THC in his blood. Baker cites data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showing an increase in driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs during the COVID pandemic nationally. One NHTSA study of five trauma centers, including one in Worcester, in 2021 found 56 percent of seriously and fatally injured drivers tested positive for at least one impairing substance, up from 50.8 percent before the public health emergency.
But Amabile said there is no evidence that rates of drugged driving have increased with marijuana legalization. “This whole sort of hysteria around drug-impaired driving is really a solution in search of a problem,” Amabile said. “There is no actual evidence that there’s some epidemic of drug-impaired driving out there. That is an absolute falsehood. And the notion that that would be linked to the legalization of cannabis is totally unproven.”
SHIRA SCHOENBERG
FROM COMMONWEALTH
Targeting Asian culture: A $1 million legislative earmark seeks to support the Asian festival culture that has been decimated by COVID and often overlooked by philanthropy. “You don’t understand how little attention we get,” said state Rep. Tackey Chan, a Quincy Democrat who sponsored the earmark. Read more.
Extra cash to spend: Gov. Charlie Baker files legislation to dole out $1.6 billion in extra state cash on COVID preparedness, child care, and human services. Read more.
Two at a time: Going forward, applicants for MassHealth will be able to play for food benefits as well. Read more.
More hate crimes: The number of hate crimes increased slightly in 2020. Read more.
OPINION
Flexibility the key: Citing research sponsored by Uber, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber says benefit plans for so-called “platform workers” should be flexible to meet the individual’s needs. Read more.
Defining parenthood: Kam Thompson recounts her personal story of trying to be recognized as a full LGBTQ parent and says the state’s parentage laws need to change. Read more.
Massachusetts citizenship: Ed Lyons, a Republican and a political writer, says Immigrant license legislation is not just about driving; it’s about Massachusetts citizenship and the importance of state power. Read more.
Getting it done: James Birge, the president of the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, details how his school is achieving social mobility for students during a pandemic. Read more.
FROM AROUND THE WEB
BEACON HILL
The Massachusetts State House is opening its doors to the public today for the first time in nearly two years. (Associated Press)
Bills filed on Beacon Hill would reform the state’s civil forfeiture laws, which one advocate calls “the worst” in the country. (Boston Herald)
HEALTH/HEALTH CARE
Those who have been infected with COVID are developing cardiac complications at an elevated rate, raising concerns of a coming “tidal wave” of cardiovascular cases resulting from the pandemic. (Washington Post)
WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL
Tensions surrounding Ukraine are rising, as Russian president Vladimir Putin recognized two breakaway eastern regions of the country as independent and fears remain that he could order a full invasion of the country. (New York Times)
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
The Dorchester Reporter takes a tour of The Beat, the rebuilt Boston Globe building in Dorchester that is preparing to open to new tenants and already laying plans to add space for the life sciences.
A couple – he’s Black, she’s White – prepare to open a cannabis store in Egremont that they built with crowd-funding and hard work. (Berkshire Eagle)
American women soccer players settle an equal pay lawsuit with US Soccer and get a $24 million settlement. (Associated Press)
EDUCATION
Northampton High School educators write a letter of protest to the School Committee for comments made by one of the panel’s members suggesting an embedded honors program creates an atmosphere of “second-class learners alongside first-class learners.” (Daily Hampshire Gazette)
To promote mental health, many colleges and college students are turning to peer counseling. (GBH)
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
State officials say Varian Medical Systems’s 20-year plan for cleanup of a toxic waste site in Beverly violates state regulations and they have ordered the company to devise a new plan to tackle the problem within two years. (Salem News)
Law students are pressing big firms to get out of the business of representing fossil fuel interests. (Boston Globe)
CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS
The case of Victor Pena, who has been held in Boston for three years on kidnapping and aggravated rape charges, continues to take strange twists and turns, including the defendant having twice fired his defense lawyers. (Boston Globe)
MEDIA
Beat The Press, canceled last year by GBH after 22 years on television, is returning as a podcast. (Media Nation)
The PBS show Arthur comes to an end after 25 seasons, making it the longest-running animated children’s show in history. (MassLive)
Beijing Olympic TV ratings were the worst in history. (New York Times)
PASSINGS
Dr. Paul Farmer, who brought health care and humanity to some of the world’s poorest regions through Partners in Health, the widely acclaimed Boston-based nonprofit he co-founded in 1987, died unexpectedly in Rwanda at age 62. (Boston Globe)