By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media Services
Simply driving with marijuana in your system isn’t enough for the state to suspend someone’s license, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled Oct.2.
The judges rejected arguments by the Motor Vehicle Division that a blood test showing metabolites of the drug is sufficient to prove a claim by the agency that there were grounds to believe that Aaron Kirsten was driving “under the influence” of the drug.
Appellate Judge Andrew Jacobs, appointed by Gov. Katie Hobbs and writing for the unanimous court, said when voters legalized marijuana for recreational use in 2020, they spelled out in Arizona law that the state may impose penalties on drivers – but only if it can first show that person is “impaired to even the slightest degree by marijuana.”
“But that was not the case here,” Jacobs said. “Instead, the state claims it can suspend Kirsten’s privilege of driving for his prior use of marijuana, as evidenced by metabolites of cannabis in his blood, without any impairment.”
In some ways, the ruling is not a surprise. The Arizona Supreme Court in 2014 barred the state from bringing criminal charges of driving while impaired against a medical marijuana user, absent proof that the person was affected by the drug.
This case is significant in two ways.
It is believed to be the first appellate court ruling on the issue since voters expanded the legal use of the drug from not just those with a doctor’s recommendation – what was permitted in the 2010 voter-approved medical marijuana law – but to any adult.
And it also extends the protections for marijuana users not just against criminal charges of driving under the influence of the drug but protects them against this kind of administrative suspension of driving privileges by the Motor Vehicle Division, something the agency can do without getting court approval.
