{"id":465,"date":"2018-11-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-23T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baronedefensefirm.lawblogger.net\/blog\/how-will-police-know-im-too-stoned-to-drive\/"},"modified":"2025-01-08T14:39:42","modified_gmt":"2025-01-08T18:39:42","slug":"how-will-police-know-im-too-stoned-to-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/how-will-police-know-im-too-stoned-to-drive\/","title":{"rendered":"How Will Police Know I\u2019m too Stoned to Drive?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is an undeniable truth that police officers have a much more difficult time detecting stoned drivers when compared with the relatively easy task of detecting drunk drivers. There are many reasons for this and first among them is that marijuana does not impact driving anywhere near the way alcohol does. It is also debatable whether marijuana impairs a driver\u2019s ability to safely operate a motor vehicle at all.\u00a0 Debate aside, with the legalization of recreational marijuana in Michigan there is little doubt that police will begin arresting more stoned drivers.\u00a0 Which begs the question; how will the police know you\u2019re too stoned to drive?<\/p>\n<p>At the beginning, the stoned-driving investigation will closely mimic a drunk driving investigation.\u00a0 A driver will be stopped for some identifiable violation of the traffic code, such as driving too slowly, disobeying traffic signals and so on. When the police first approach the driver, they will be looking for any signs or symptoms of marijuana use.\u00a0 Like alcohol, the most tell-tale sign will be the odor of marijuana, which is obviously much more difficult to detect in the case of consumables.\u00a0 The police will be looking for pupil dilation and eyes that otherwise appear stoned.\u00a0 Additionally, the police will be looking for packaging or paraphernalia commonly associated with marijuana use.\u00a0 If marijuana use is suspected, the police will seek an admission to the prior use of marijuana.\u00a0 The next step may be either to request a preliminary breath test and\/or to request the driver&#8217;s participation in the administration of field sobriety tests.\u00a0 The purpose of all this is to determine if in fact the person is impaired and to rule out the possibility that alcohol is causing the impairment.<\/p>\n<p>After a driver blows all zeros (or very low) on the alcohol preliminary breath test, the police officer will need to decide whether to call in a DRE (Drug Recognition Expert). The police officer will also need to decide if they have enough evidence to arrest the driver at this point, or if the DRE needs to continue the investigation at the roadside. In preparation for all of this, in 2016 <a href=\"\/blog\/michigan-expands-definition-and-use-of-drug-recognition-experts\/\">Michigan expanded its definition of the Drug Recognition Expert<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/how-will-police-know-im-too-stoned-to-drive\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading How Will Police Know I\u2019m too Stoned to Drive?\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is an undeniable truth that police officers have a much more difficult time detecting stoned drivers when compared with the relatively easy task of detecting drunk drivers. There are many reasons for this and first among them is that marijuana does not impact driving anywhere near the way alcohol does. It is also debatable [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-owi"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How Will Police Know I\u2019m too Stoned to Drive?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"With the legalization of Marijuana in some places, how will Police determine whether you are driving under the influence? Attorney Patrick Barone explains.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/how-will-police-know-im-too-stoned-to-drive\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"How Will Police Know I\u2019m too Stoned to Drive?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"With the legalization of Marijuana in some places, how will Police determine whether you are driving under the influence? Attorney Patrick Barone explains.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Patrick Barone\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How Will Police Know I\u2019m too Stoned to Drive?","description":"With the legalization of Marijuana in some places, how will Police determine whether you are driving under the influence? Attorney Patrick Barone explains.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/how-will-police-know-im-too-stoned-to-drive\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"How Will Police Know I\u2019m too Stoned to Drive?","twitter_description":"With the legalization of Marijuana in some places, how will Police determine whether you are driving under the influence? Attorney Patrick Barone explains.","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Patrick Barone","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/how-will-police-know-im-too-stoned-to-drive\/","url":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/how-will-police-know-im-too-stoned-to-drive\/","name":"How Will Police Know I\u2019m too Stoned to Drive?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-11-23T04:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2025-01-08T18:39:42+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/da00f897e195cfccca02fe556b53136f"},"description":"With the legalization of Marijuana in some places, how will Police determine whether you are driving under the influence? Attorney Patrick Barone explains.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/how-will-police-know-im-too-stoned-to-drive\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/how-will-police-know-im-too-stoned-to-drive\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/how-will-police-know-im-too-stoned-to-drive\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How Will Police Know I\u2019m too Stoned to Drive?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/","name":"Michigan Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog","description":"Published by Michigan Criminal Defense Attorney \u2014 Barone Defense Firm","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/da00f897e195cfccca02fe556b53136f","name":"Patrick Barone","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/72accf40078879330cdb7caae27be7ad00db64cb0555444fefa6e1a762116037?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/72accf40078879330cdb7caae27be7ad00db64cb0555444fefa6e1a762116037?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Patrick Barone"}}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3682,"href":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465\/revisions\/3682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}