Driving While Drugged
Missouri’s Driving-Under-the-Influence law appears to
have a big hole in it… because it doesn’t cover all of the “influences”
the same way. House Transportation chairman Neil St. Onge says he was
“kind of shocked” to learn from a Kansas City Star reporter that the
state’s DUI law does include blood-drug tests similar to the
blood-alcohol tests used for drunk driving cases. St. Onge is sure the
legislature will move to close that loophole next year. The big question
is how the legislature will establish the blood-drug level. He says he
has read that marijuana can stay in a person’s system for a month,
meaning a trace in a person’s blood would not be enough to prove a person
is driving under the influence of drugs. St. Onge assumes other states
have set standards. He also thinks some standards exist in Missouri’s
worker’s comp law and might exist in unemployment law. If history is a
guide, however, passage of a DUI law for drugs might not be a given. It
took several years to get the point-zero-eight drunk driving law through
the general assembly. Law enforcement officers often use section 577.010
of the Missouri statutes to get drugged drivers off the road. The part of
the law says a person is considered to be driving while intoxicated if
they are in an intoxicated or drugged condition. However, officers say
they have to rely on a person’s appearance or behavior to judge if they
are under the influence of drugs because there is no blood-drug
statute.
Source: http://www.missourinet.com
