How high is too high to drive?
By Rob Hotakainen, McClatchy Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — Josephine Drum says her daughter was “cheated out of life” when she was killed while driving to work in downtown Seattle in 2012, hit by a man in a Jeep whose blood tested positive for marijuana.
“I feel if you smoke marijuana and you have to smoke it, that you should not be able to drive under the influence,” said Drum of Stockton. “I’m 84 years old. To have lost my daughter is something hard for me to accept.”
With the push to legalize marijuana surging in popularity, states want to assure the public that roads will be safe. But they face a perplexing question: How stoned is too stoned to drive?
With no conclusive research, states are all over the map as they try to assess intoxication by measuring blood levels of THC, the main ingredient in marijuana.
There’s no easy way to do it, with marijuana stored in fat cells and detectable in blood long after it’s smoked or consumed, for days or weeks, depending on individual tolerance and level of use.