Issue link: http://psai.uberflip.com/i/1308535
ASSOCIATIONINSIGHT Portable Sanitation Association International News BIWEEKLY EDITION NOVEMBER 11, 2020 Page 15 • Drugs such as marijuana can also stay in the system for weeks, thus appearing positive in tests while no longer causing impairment. • Tracking marijuana-impaired driving is difficult because drivers who may be under the influence of both marijuana and alcohol are often cited for a high blood alcohol concentration and rarely tested for additional substances. To address marijuana-impaired driving, every state has a law that, in some manner, deals with the issue. At right is a graphic provided by the National Council of State Legislatures-NCSL). According to the NCSL: • Six states—Illinois, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington—have specific per se limits for Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the component that gives cannabis its psychological effects and causes impairment, ranging between 1 nanogram and 5 nanograms. Per se laws establish that once a person is shown to have reached or surpassed the legal limit, that person will be considered impaired by law. • Colorado's reasonable inference law states that in instances where THC is identified in a driver's blood in quantities of 5ng/ml or higher, it is permissible to assume the driver was under the influence. Reasonable inference laws differ from per se laws in that they allow drivers who are charged to introduce an affirmative defense to show that despite having tested at or above the legal limit, they were not impaired. • Eleven states—Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah and Wisconsin—have zero-tolerance laws for certain drugs, including THC. Check out your state's laws and limits according to the Governor's Highway Safety Association as of August 2020. A Little Bit Goes a Long Way—But How Far? Then there is the matter of "legally impaired" versus "acceptable to drive a truck." At this point, there is no consensus on where the line between those two conditions might be. With alcohol, FMCSA rules say you cannot drive if you: • have a blood alcohol concentration of .04 or greater (some regulations do not permit you to continue at work if you are found to have a blood alcohol concentration of .02 to .039); • have used any prohibited drug. In addition, you must not use alcohol in the four hours (eight hours for flight crew members and flight attendants) before reporting for service or after receiving notice to report. With THC, there is no federally recognized impairment level because there is zero tolerance for the drug in federal trucking regulations. The matter thus falls to individual states, and it is complicated by the fact that past use of marijuana will show up in a drug test as much as a month after the most casual use. Legal Cannabis—Driving the Portable Sanitation Industry Crazy …continued from page 14 Continued on page 22