Members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives introduce bill protecting medical cannabis users from drunk driving

If Pennsylvania passes law, medical cannabis patients will no longer be at risk of being charged with drunk driving simply because drug tests show the presence of THC in their bodies, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. However, this does not mean that you can drive with a health insurance card if you are impaired, nor does it apply to people using cannabis without a health insurance card.

Rather, the legislation introduced seeks to address a long-standing problem since the legalization of cannabis. As many readers know, THC can show up in your urine 30 days after consumption, up to 90 days in heavier users. Therefore, arresting people for DUI because their drug test shows the presence of THC would be tantamount to issuing DUI to a driver who has not been drinking in a month. The drug testing bias against cannabis, one of the safest drugs, is not unique to alcohol. Cocaine leaves your urine after about three days, as does heroin. Meth can persist for six days. When a person fails a drug test for whatever reason, it’s often just because they smoked some weed.

We know that cannabis is generally safe to use, and a recent Canadian study even found that legalizing weed didn’t lead to more car accidents. However, it is understandable that people are concerned about disabled drivers. However, under current Pennsylvania law, police can charge drivers for drunk driving if they are found to have used marijuana, regardless of the extent of the impairment or the timing of use.

“In 2016, the Palestinian Authority General Assembly voted to legalize the medicinal use of cannabis. Unfortunately, lawmakers have failed to give these patients the same privileges as others who have a legal prescription for a proposed drug,” said a co-sponsor and two-page memo from Rep. Chris Rabb, D-Philadelphia, and Rep. Aaron Buyer, R-alfalfa . “Patients using medicinal cannabis regularly come to our offices because they fear state law prohibits them from driving,” they continue.

Currently (and thankfully), Pennsylvania is an outlier and just one of a handful of states that has zero tolerance for controlled substances. In 33 states (even where cannabis is still largely prohibited) proof of actual impairment is required at the time of transfer. At the last session, Pennsylvania officials introduced similar legislation but got bogged down in government quicksand and didn’t make it out of the Transportation Committee. There have been other attempts to resolve this issue in the state senate. The Senate Transportation Committee approved Senate Bill 167 last June. However (and more government quicksand), the bill didn’t even get a full Senate vote before the end of the 2021-22 legislative session.

“During a Senate Transportation Committee meeting last September, representatives from the Pennsylvania State Police testified that the bill would not compromise their mission to keep the Commonwealth’s freeways and byways free of disabled drivers,” said Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R -Washington, the primary sponsor of SB 167, said the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a statement at the time of this committee vote. Given that more than 425,000 Pennsylvania residents have active patient certificates allowing them to use medical marijuana in Pennsylvania, we hope this issue gets resolved sooner rather than later.

Sane officials in Pennsylvania are currently trying to rationalize cannabis laws in other ways. Sen. Mike Regan, R-Cumberland, and Sen. James Brewster, D-McKeesport, announced earlier this year plans for legislation that would allow doctors to certify patients using medicinal cannabis for any condition, rather than the current limited medical list of the state to use. On a map of states that have legalized adult use, Pennsylvania sticks out like a sore thumb that hasn’t.