This week News Talk 830 WCCO is taking a look at some of the issues and challenges surrounding Minnesota’s new law that legalizes recreational marijuana.
WCCO’s Laura Oakes has a look at the new challenge for law enforcement and how they will work to recognize an entirely different kind of impaired driving.
It starts with a training program called A-Ride, intended to give all police officers, sheriff’s deputies, and state troopers additional tools to evaluate someone impaired by something other than, or in addition to, alcohol.
It’s important, considering that, unlike a preliminary breath test for alcohol, there is no official screening device for cannabis.
However, there is one thing the state is trying in a pilot program this fall: an oral fluid test that uses a swab of the driver’s mouth to detect the presence of marijuana or other drugs in saliva.
“The PBT indicates well it’s not alcohol, so then we can step in there with the oral fluid test, and we can identify what those other impairing substance or substances would be,” Minnesota Office of Traffic Safety Director Mike Hanson said. Hanson added that the oral fluid test will be able to identify more than just cannabis, but opioids and other types of drugs.
Head of the Minnesota State Patrol, Colonel Matt Langer, says troopers will continue to look for signs of driving impairment just like they always have, but he admits it’s a little trickier these days.
“10 years, 20 years ago, we would focus 85% of our time on recognizing alcohol-impaired drivers,” Langer said. “And then we would spend some time talking about ‘What happens if you encounter someone who you know is impaired, but then you discover it’s not at all as a result of alcohol?’”
Today, Langer says that the discussions around impaired driving caused by alcohol and narcotics are closer to 50/50.
“It’s not like 'What happens if you encounter it?'" Langer said. "It’s when you encounter people who are impaired, and it’s not alcohol. What do you do?” Langer said.
And sometimes, when that happens, an officer, deputy, or trooper may need a little help determining which drug or drugs they’re dealing with.
In that case, they may call a drug recognition expert, or DRE, to the scene.
These officers have been through an intense, academically-demanding, expensive training program beyond their A-RIDE training. Hanson says they’re in such demand the state is hoping to increase the number of DREs from 300 to 500 in the near future.
As for the process of legalization, both Hanson and Langer agree that while it seems like it happened in an instant once the balance in the Legislature shifted, they’ve actually been expecting it for a while and have had time to prepare by looking to other states.
“The fact that so many other states have preceded Minnesota into this legalization has allowed us to pick their brain and learn from their experience and try and develop the countermeasures and the programs that will avoid some of the consequences that those states suffer,” Hanson said.
Langer says impaired driving-related traffic deaths due to marijuana, other drugs, or alcohol have one common denominator.
“We’re haunted by the people who are killed by gun violence or violent crime, domestic violence. You’re haunted by the people who die from cancer, medical conditions that can’t be solved. Think of all the deaths that can’t be solved. We’re talking about deaths that can be solved. We know how to solve these deaths,” Langer said. “They are easily preventable. “
Still, Hanson says while drug and alcohol-related traffic deaths are down substantially from what they were a few decades ago before seat belt laws and other factors, even one is too many.
“Anything we can do to prevent that family from having that knock on the door is absolutely why we go to work each and every day,” Hanson said.
MORE: See all of WCCO's series on Legalizing Recreational Marijuana here.
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