By Phil Riske
Managing Editor, Rose Law Group Reporter
Arizona’s medical marijuana law contains a provision stating “metabolites,” or traces, of marijuana in the blood does not constitute human impairment. Law enforcement and courts, however, do not have a specific legal measurement of impairment levels of marijuana in the blood, such as for alcohol.
Ryan Hurley, co-chair, Rose Law Group Medical Marijuana Department, says legislation to establish a legal limit for marijuana will probably come someday, but would be difficult to enact without science to back it up.
Meanwhile, Alberto Gutier of the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety told 3TV on Saturday it is unlikely a medical marijuana patient could use the drug and be busted for DUI three days later. He said a person would have to show obvious signs of impairment that officers have been trained to detect.
But, he said, if a test shows any evidence of marijuana, “They’re going to be arrested. Period.”
Hurley discounted part of the TV story regarding a hypothetical scenario where a person smoked medically prescribed marijuana in the confines of a dispensary, then leaves by car and gets arrested for DUI.
“You can’t hang around a dispensary smoking cannabis for a couple hours. You can’t smoke it in public,” Hurley said. He represents Arizona Organix in Glendale, which became the first medical marijuana dispensary licensed in the state.
“There will be conflicts in court,” he said, resulting from legalization by many states of medical and recreational marijuana, adding Arizona is keeping an eye on what develops in Colorado, where the medical marijuana business is booming, and other states that have reclassified marijuana, a narcotic, which is on the federal list of controlled substances
In this month’s election, Colorado became the third state to ask the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to reclassify marijuana from Schedule 1, a category that includes heroin, to Schedule 2, which would permit doctors to prescribe marijuana and pharmacies to fill those prescriptions.
