Call your representative about amending HB 1261

Published: March 21, 2011

Last Friday, the House Appropriations Committee sent a bill to the House floor that could criminalize sober drivers for “driving under the influence.” HB 1261 would declare anyone with five nanograms of THC per milliliter of their whole blood guilty of driving under the influence — even if the person could prove they were actually not impaired! Please call your representative and ask him or her to amend this bill to give drivers a chance to prove their innocence, by changing the “per se” limit to a rebuttable presumption.

No one, including the Marijuana Policy Project, would argue that people should be allowed to drive while impaired (be it from alcohol, marijuana, prescription narcotics, or Benadryl), so we support legislation that would take those drivers off the roads. However, by making a hard and fast limit for THC, Colorado’s DUID law will unfairly target medical marijuana patients who could have a higher level of THC in their blood without being impaired.

Please call your representative and ask that this THC count only be used as a presumption of being impaired, not a per se limit.