The Problem with Marijuana DUI Laws: Legal and Scientific Pot Holes

• In Event: Roundtable: Drugs and Guns: Recent Reforms

Abstract

Prior to the legalization of marijuana at the state level, law enforcement and some constituents proposed the following would occur: if marijuana is legalized, ceteris paribus there will be a dramatic increase of impaired driving offenses leading to more traffic accidents, fatalities, and dangerous roads. Using existing state data this paper demonstrates this social phenomenon begins to appear to be a case of a marijuana DUI crisis that was not. I conclude by outlining some of the limits with state efforts to establish DUI marijuana laws using these tests under a science based jurisprudence of dangerousness and point to missing theoretical considerations necessary for the development of a science backed theory of jurisprudence essential to the building of DUI marijuana laws.

Author

• Mario J. Avalos, University of California, Santa Cruz