Weed warning: What police want you to know about impaired driving
BALTIMORE -- As we prepare for the legalization of weed on July 1, police are warning motorists about cannabis-impaired driving.
Cannabis consumption can impact driving ability. Reaction times and motor coordination can be negatively impacted.
Police throughout the state will be relying on drug recognition experts to identify impaired drivers since there is no standard test to measure cannabis impairment.
So how will police be able to detect impaired driving?
With alcohol, it's easy to understand that a higher Blood Alcohol Concentration means a higher level of impairment.
However, with cannabis, it doesn't quite work that way.
Since THC impacts everybody differently, there is no breathalyzer equivalent for cannabis to indicate impairment, which makes the job of police who work to take impaired drivers off of the road more challenging.
Since 2018, the Baltimore County Police Department has been working to get as many officers as possible trained on how to identify impaired drivers, including cannabis-specific training.
"After the amendment was passed into law, we knew July 1 was coming," said Tom Morehouse, with the Baltimore County Police Department. "We actually added even more of those classes so we can get more officers trained on what cannabis impairment looks like."
Last month, WJZ showed you "the Green Lab" where Baltimore County police trained officers to identify cannabis impairment.
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With our cameras rolling, medical cannabis card holders lit up while officers assessed their impairment in real time.
Those are important lessons that will soon be taken on the road throughout Maryland.
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"All of our information, all of the signs and symptoms and observations that we look for, come from the same textbooks that doctors use in medical school, nurses use in nursing school and pharmacists use in pharmacy school," Morehouse said. "It's coming from people in the medical profession to tell us this is what you should look for."
Cannabis consumption can negatively impact reaction time, motor coordination and attention.
And the duration of cannabis impairment can vary from person to person and is dependent on a number of factors.
The Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission's recent guidelines recommend waiting six hours after consuming cannabis to drive.
"The best advice is, if you are using, don't drive," Morehouse said. "If you are with somebody that has been using, then be that good friend. Be a designated driver or take the keys away from them. They should not be driving."
Baltimore County Police say they expect 450,000 Marylanders 21 and over to become recreational cannabis users.
Police expect more people to use cannabis and drive which they believe will lead to an increase in all traffic safety issues in Maryland
