DUID Victim Voices

DUID Victim Network

Education and promoting effectiv

Education and promoting effective laws to reduce Driving Under the Influence of Drugs (DUID)

About DUID Victim Voices:

Many voices are heard when a state considers stronger DUID laws. The voices of the marijuana lobby, law enforcement professionals, forensic toxicologists, and drug users typically dominate. DUID Victim Voices represents the interests of the victims of drugged driving, providing fact-based education and a victim perspective to decision makers and to the general public.

Background

All states define alcohol DUI per se with laboratory tests that prove impairment by a blood alcohol level greater than .08 gm/dl for adults and greater than zero (or .02 gm/dl) for minors. Laboratory tests are routinely performed for all suspected alcohol DUI cases. Only 19 states define drug DUI (DUID) per se by objective laboratory tests.

Three additional states have established permissible limits for marijuana’s active THC in drivers, but these limits are a poor substitute for comprehensive drug per se laws. All other states use more difficult, costly, and subjective means to prove DUID on a case-by-case basis, with highly variable results.

Wanted: imaginative thinking

Rosekind, Ehsani and Michael published a June 2020 Commentary in JAMA Internal Medicine calling for more data to inform policies needed to reduce impaired driving fatalities.  Although we are a strong proponent of more data for that purpose, we took issue with two of the authors’ specific recommendations:

  1. More crash risk studies like the NHTSA-sponsored Virginia Beach study, and
  2. Improved FARS data.

JAMA Internal Medicine published our disagreements and the authors’ response Nov. 16, 2020:… READ MORE

Stoned driving more common than drunk driving

Colorado authorized the use of marijuana tax dollars to temporarily fund a program at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation's Forensic Toxicology laboratory, enabling them to test all DUI toxicology samples for drugs as well as alcohol.  The Read More