“Drivers who take medicinal cannabis for cancer or mental health or pain relief, are not willing to put themselves in a position where they are potentially going to be prosecuted for driving while taking a medication that is prescribed,” she said.
"These people are often very conscious of not driving when they feel impaired by their substance but the legislation as it stands, it doesn’t matter if you are impaired or not, it’s only if the substance is in your system.
The key issue is they are testing for the presence of THC which can remain in the body a long time, long after it would have no effect on driving. If they cannot detect impairment, what’s the point? Now nobody with a legal medical cannabis prescription can drive without fear of being tested.
I’m curious to hear views from others on this. This article claims both that medical users are careful not to drive under the influence, then later claims they may drive under the influence of something else so as to avoid being caught.
Personally 50k a year seems like such a low number it’s barely a pilot (there were 3 million breath tests in 2023).
From Schedule 5 of the legislation:
- 3 ng/ml is the “high-risk blood concentration level” for THC.
- 1 ng/ml is the “tolerance blood concentration level” for THC.
What is the difference?
Medsafe says:
Schedule 5 has two blood concentration levels for each listed qualifying drug: tolerance and high-risk.
Exceeding the lower level (tolerance) is an infringement and could result in a fine or licence demerit points.
Exceeding the higher level (high-risk) could result in a criminal charge and the driver may be disqualified from driving or sentenced to prison.
To get an idea of what other countries are doing see https://www.ncids.org/2021/marijuana-impairment-faq/
How long can THC be detected in the blood after ingestion of marijuana?
“Low THC levels of a few nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml) in blood can result from relatively recent use (e.g., smoking within 1 – 3 hours) when some slight or even moderate impairment is likely to be present, or it can result from chronic use where no recent ingestion has occurred and no impairment is present.” - Compton at p. 7.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to be on the road with a bunch of stoned people but it seems pretty bleak to me. A medical user could definitely hit 1ng/ml without being impaired.
There is another RNZ story on this from 11 Oct.
