Washington, DC: Legislation approved by Congress and signed by the President this week for the first time contains language regarding the enforcement of “drug-impaired driving.”
The provision, included in the Transportation Appropriations bill, orders the Transportation Secretary, in cooperation with National Institutes of Health (NIH), to submit a report to Congress estimating the prevalence of “drugged driving” and assessing the available “technologies for measuring driver impairment resulting from use of the most common illicit drugs (including the use of such drugs in combination with alcohol.)”
To date, 13 states have enacted laws prohibiting motorists from operating a vehicle with trace levels of illicit drugs and/or drug metabolites in their bodily fluids. In 2004, Congress considered legislation to mandate all states to enact so-called “zero-tolerance per se” drugged driving laws. However, that effort failed to gain majority support.
For more information, please contact either Allen St. Pierre or Paul Armentano of NORML at (202) 483-5500. A comprehensive breakdown of state drugged driving laws appears in NORML’s report, “You Are Going Directly to Jail: DUID Legislation: What It Means, Who’s Behind It, and Strategies to Prevent It,” available online at:
http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6492