Tag Archives: marijuana

Image source: National Eye Institute https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Checking_Blood_Sample_(9955279835).jpg Can a patient seeking care at a hospital give a blood sample for the purposes of acquiring medical treatment while retaining their Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure of that sample of blood by the police? According to a recent Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals decision[1], the official answer is still unclear. On February 16, 2013, an Alabama driver struck and severely injured a pedestrian. The police arrived on the scene, and ... Read More »

ALBANY, NY (WRGB) — They estimate this could being in 375 million dollars a year in revenue. Lawmakers tell CBS 6 they have made an agreement, But critics of legal marijuana are concerned about what this could mean for public safety, specifically about impaired driving. “We have passed the point of legalized cannabis. It’s in New Jersey it’s in Massachusetts,” Governor Cuomo said in a briefing. The text of the bill hasn’t been finalized yet, but Assembly members say the ... Read More »

On August 27, 2020, Florida legalized edible medical marijuana. This significant law broadens the THC options available to qualified patients as well as provides alternatives to smoking medical marijuana, which was legalized in 2019. THC is the psychoactive compound in cannabis (marijuana) that provides treatment benefits for patients suffering from certain medical conditions. It comes in various forms, including edibles, which are cannabis-infused foods and beverages. Florida’s new edible medical marijuana law includes the following rules: No primary or bright colors in ... Read More »

Regular readers of this blog know that I try to keep them informed about new methods of detecting marijuana (THC) in the body of drivers.  For instance, you may wish to review my 2019 post here and my 2015 post here.  In addition to breath tests, a saliva test has now been studied.  If perfected, this method will likely be used by law-enforcement officers as part of their investigatory procedures to determine if someone is driving under the influence of ... Read More »

According to an article published in Prosperous, a team from the University of Pittsburgh, including Dr. Ervin Sejdic, has created a breath testing device that can trace levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in a person’s breath. THC is the chemical responsible for most of marijuana’s psychological effects. These researchers developed it through the use of carbon nanotubes, which are miniscule tubes of carbon 100,000x tinier than a human hair. According to this news article, the cannabinoid THC as well as other ... Read More »

Substantiating British research from many years ago, a car crash study reported on May 20, 2019 in the online version of the journal Addiction, found no statistically significant relationship between drivers testing positive for Δ-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) or other drugs and those who did not in contributing to a motor vehicle collisions. The study was based on 3005 injured drivers and police reports on 2318.  In particular, the findings found no statistically significant relationship between testing positive for THC and the risk ... Read More »

Periodically, when the need arises to provide information that Mr. Oberman does not feel qualified to give, guest posts are provided to the readers of this blog.  Given that Mr. Oberman is not licensed to practice law in Canada and the fact that he does not practice in the field of immigration law, he asked Canadian attorney Marisa Feil to write a guest blog about the implications relating to Canadian Bill C-46, which will take effect in December of 2018.  ... Read More »

The crime of Driving Under the Influence (DUI, DWI, OWI, etc.) may be committed by driving while impaired due to any intoxicant or combination of intoxicants.  These include, among other intoxicants, alcohol, prescribed medication or illegal drugs.   A 2016 study by the Governors Highway Safety Association (“GHSA”) shows a trend in fatal drug related crashes surpassing deadly accidents involving alcohol. Experts say this trend derives from states legalizing marijuana combined with the current opioid epidemic in America. According to ... Read More »

According to Inverse.com, the National Institute on Drug Abuse has now created a mobile phone app that can determine if you are impaired due to marijuana consumption. The app, presented by Elisa Pabon, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago, is called, “Am I Stoned?” The app, while not yet ready for distribution, tracks performance on certain digital tasks performed on one’s smart phone. Surprisingly, the most accurate assessments of impairment came from the study participants.  “With regard to ... Read More »

In September 2017, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court unanimously ruled that police cannot give testimony that, in the officer’s opinion, a driver was under the influence of marijuana based on their on-scene observations, including sobriety tests. The court found that there is no consensus in the scientific community that roadside sobriety tests prove someone is under the influence of marijuana. The judges noted that the effects of marijuana “vary greatly from one individual to another, and those effects are as ... Read More »