A state senator in Alabama says he will try and implement new drugged driving limits to bring more clarity to an otherwise murky legal matter. Proponents of the measure say that existing Alabama law only speaks about drugged driving in generalities, something that makes it difficult for law enforcement to prosecute offenders.

The measure to toughen the state’s laws are being proposed by Senator Arthur Orr who says that he wants to empower police officers in the state to be able to crack down on drug-impaired drivers the same way that they can on those under the influence of alcohol. To help facilitate this, Orr has drafted a bill that gives officers the power to administer a drug test to anyone they believe might be under the influence of drugs. Orr says that his proposal would function much like existing Breathalyzer exams do in that they are given to drivers that police officers suspect of being impaired.

Beyond allowing for these drug tests, Orr says that he is also determined to clear up the currently unstated limits for drugged driving. Alabama law is clear that drivers are considered legally drunk when they have a blood alcohol concentration greater than 0.08 percent. This kind of bright-line rule makes it easy to pinpoint when someone has had too much to safely drive and allows for relatively simply criminal prosecutions of drunk drivers.

However, the same is not true in Alabama, or in many states, when it comes to drugs. Rather than a have a bright-line rule, many have vague and immeasurable standards, often leaving it up to the discretion of the arresting officer. Orr wants to change that and has proposed that a clear limit of 5 nanograms per milliliter of blood be used as the measuring stick for a wide array of drugs, legal and illegal. The new law would then function much like the drunk driving law and says that any driver found to have more than 5 nanograms per milliliter of marijuana, cocaine or even meth in his or her blood would face a DUI charge.

Though some groups in Alabama have rallied around the proposed law (largely law enforcement organizations), there are some serious downsides of such strict rules regarding drug impairment. Recent trouble in Washington State has highlighted the problems that can arise when bright-line rules are created to cover confusing issues such as drug impairment.

Washington passed a similar law last year saying that 5 nanograms per milliliter would be the state’s legal limit for a variety of drugs, including marijuana, which was recently decriminalized. The trouble is that that drugs, unlike alcohol, can be present in a person’s system long after they were initially consumed. This means drivers can fail a drug test despite having consumed the drug hours or even days prior. Additionally, frequent users can build up vast amounts of the drug or its metabolite in their systems, which would cause them to fail drug test even though they are not impaired.

Though rules like the one proposed in Alabama bring some clarity to the issue of drugged driving, the reality is that the issue is a complicated one and cannot simply be boiled down to a one-size-fits-all approach.

Source: “Lawmakers Mull Makeover Of DUI Drug Laws,” by Nick Banaszak, published at WHNT.com.