It remains criminal to have any THC in your system when driving even with a prescription though. With no meaningful way to test if someone has consumed THC in the past 5 hours vs the night before it makes it a useless medical aid for anyone who has to drive, which outside of inner suburbs of Melbourne & Sydney is the vast majority of people in Australia.
> It remains criminal to have any THC in your system when driving even with a prescription though
Rightly so. I mean maybe it’s too strict (i.e. you’re totally sober but still will be penalized for having anything show up in your blood) but in general driving under THC influence is as bad as driving on alcohol, you could get yourself and others killed.
> driving under THC influence is as bad as driving on alcohol
It's really not. There have been tests done by a government transport regulatory agency (in an EU country), comparing THC, alcohol and sober driving.
While alcohol promotes reckless driving (i know what i'm doing, i've got it, even if i don't), driving under THC is different, people are much more careful, even compared with the sober state. Slower driving, less incidents.
Alcohol makes you kill yourself and others, takes only few hours to get out of your system. THC makes you drive slower and more careful, can be found in blood days or weeks later (with no effect on cognition or faculties).
You're right that driving under any influence is (probably) not safe. But this seems like the same kind of stupid like testing your hair for drinking alcohol few months back.
Driving under the influence of THC is bad, but driving in the morning when you had THC last night while watching The Last of Us and being punished for that is ridiculous. I take it that THC shows up in your blood days after consuming, while the effects last hours.
I keep hearing this but surely if you presented your prescription in court the charges would be dropped? In my experience, magistrates are usually very reasonable. Police on the other hand...
There are plenty of completely legal prescription drugs you aren't allowed to drive on. Having a prescription will certainly not exonerate you if you're smoking a joint while driving, same as if you were caught taking Xanax while driving.
Whether magistrates would look at the levels of THC in your blood and be sympathetic to an argument that you had consumed a long time ago (and thus were no longer under the influence) is another question. I tend to think magistrates would side with the law as written in most cases, if the law explicitly prohibits driving with any amount of THC detectable in blood tests.
I don't think they're widely used yet, but there are iPad apps that police departments can use to test for marijuana impairment before administrating a THC test, similar to the "touch your nose, walk on this line" tests they use prior to pulling out a breathalyzer.
