Free Legal Advice For Marijuana DUI Cases
Our office is seeing a lot more marijuana DUI cases recently. We believe that this is because as we get closer to legalizing marijuana, people believe that it is legal to drive a vehicle after consuming. The problem is, the marijuana DUI laws, at least as they apply to Arizona, are very unclear. The law makes two distinctions. First, if a person does not have a medical marijuana card, it is illegal to drive with any traceable amounts of marijuana in their system. What is a traceable amount of marijuana? It’s against the law to have any traceable amount of THC in a person’s system at the time of driving.
Generally speaking, THC stays in a person system for up to three days. The metabolite of marijuana that stays in a person’s system for as much as 30 days is not impairing and is not against the law to have in a person’s system. Now, with all that said, if a police officer pulled you over for reasonable suspicion, they must then establish probable cause to arrest you for DUI. This means, that the officer has to believe that your ability to operate a motor vehicle was impaired by some form of illegal drug. The scenario that we’re seeing a lot of is, people smoking marijuana may be several hours before or maybe the day before and get pulled over by police officer – if the car still smells like marijuana, the police officer will conduct field sobriety tests and justify a reason as to believe your ability to drive a vehicle was impaired. Once they establish “their probable cause,” they will arrest you. If you consume marijuana within the past day or two, the results will reflect marijuana and you will be charged with the marijuana DUI.
Medical Marijuana Card
The other scenario that we see a lot of is people having a medical marijuana card. The law is very different if you have a medical marijuana card. Unlike a person that does not have a card, the officers have to prove some level of impairment. Again, if you do not have a card all that needs to be proven by the police officers is you were driving with marijuana in your system. If you have a card, attorneys get to challenge whether you were actually impaired. Please don’t believe that just because you have a card you are able to freely drive a vehicle after consuming marijuana. Think of it like alcohol. Alcohol is legal, but it is illegal to drive a vehicle while impaired by alcohol.
Some states, like Colorado, have minimum thresholds for marijuana. This means, if a person has more than a certain amount of marijuana in their system, it is presumed they’re impaired. Arizona has not established a threshold for marijuana.
Our Lawyers Are Ready
Although we are seeing a significant increase in marijuana DUIs across the entire state of Arizona, the good news is that our lawyers are heavily trained in attacking marijuana DUI cases. We have found that we are able to provide sometimes better results for marijuana DUI cases then we are for alcohol-related cases. This is because we’re able to challenge probable cause for the arrest.
My advice to you, if you are charged with a marijuana DUI, call our office immediately to discuss a strategy that we will take to get your case dismissed or reduced. The worst thing you can do is try to handle your case yourself and to not hire an attorney, 602-926-0673.