{"id":463,"date":"2018-11-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-07T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baronedefensefirm.lawblogger.net\/blog\/the-interplay-between-legalized-marijuana-and-intoxicated-driving-2\/"},"modified":"2025-01-08T14:39:42","modified_gmt":"2025-01-08T18:39:42","slug":"the-interplay-between-legalized-marijuana-and-intoxicated-driving-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/the-interplay-between-legalized-marijuana-and-intoxicated-driving-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Interplay Between Legalized Marijuana and Intoxicated Driving"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Now that Michigan\u2019s voters have approved the legal use of recreational marijuana, how will this impact Michigan\u2019s laws against intoxicated driving?\u00a0 The answer is &#8211; not very much.<\/p>\n<p>As of the date of this article, it is unlawful in Michigan to drive under the influence of or while impaired by alcohol, drugs, or a combination of alcohol or drugs. This includes marijuana. However, the current state of the law in Michigan is that there are two different standards that apply to marijuana, one for medical marijuana users and one for everyone else.\u00a0 For a person with a medical marijuana card who is otherwise using medical marijuana legally, the police must prove that the marijuana substantially lessened their ability to operate the motor vehicle.\u00a0 For everyone else, zero tolerance applies, and simply driving with any amount of marijuana in your system is enough to violate the intoxicated driving laws.<\/p>\n<p>Because marijuana has just become legal to use recreationally in Michigan, it will take some time for the intoxicated driving laws to catch up to this new reality. When they eventually\u00a0do catch up, two things are likely to happen. First, marijuana will no longer be classified as a zero tolerance \u201cany amount\u201d drug.\u00a0 This zero-tolerance standard will be replaced by a legal limit for marijuana.\u00a0 Other states have set arbitrary amounts, such as 5 ng of THC (marijuana\u2019s active ingredient), so the first thing Michigan\u2019s lawmakers will need to decide is this arbitrary legal cut-off.\u00a0 Next, Michigan\u2019s laws of intoxicated driving, found in the Michigan traffic code&#8217;s\u00a0chapter 257 will need to be amended. Until both things happen, Michigan\u2019s recreational marijuana users will be in a sort of legal limbo while trial courts try to decide the appropriate legal standard for judges and juries to apply in the review of these cases.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/the-interplay-between-legalized-marijuana-and-intoxicated-driving-2\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading The Interplay Between Legalized Marijuana and Intoxicated Driving\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now that Michigan\u2019s voters have approved the legal use of recreational marijuana, how will this impact Michigan\u2019s laws against intoxicated driving?\u00a0 The answer is &#8211; not very much. As of the date of this article, it is unlawful in Michigan to drive under the influence of or while impaired by alcohol, drugs, or a combination [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dui","category-marijuana-laws"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Interplay Between Legalized Marijuana and Intoxicated Driving<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Since the legal use of recreational marijuana has been approved by Michigan voters, there can be questions raised about Michigan OWIs.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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