{"id":11303,"date":"2016-06-16T18:37:07","date_gmt":"2016-06-16T18:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=11303"},"modified":"2017-09-21T10:37:00","modified_gmt":"2017-09-21T10:37:00","slug":"what-level-of-thc-in-blood-causes-driving-impairment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2016\/06\/what-level-of-thc-in-blood-causes-driving-impairment\/","title":{"rendered":"What level of THC in blood causes driving impairment?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Let us provide a rational answer to a nonsensical question. It is a nonsensical question because blood is never impaired by THC. Never. Alcohol doesn\u2019t impair blood either. These drugs only impair the brain, not the blood.<\/span><\/p>\n

We can only test for drug content in the brain by means of an autopsy, something most drivers would reasonably object to.<\/span><\/p>\n

We test blood as a surrogate for what\u2019s in the brain. For alcohol, blood is a very good surrogate. Alcohol is a tiny, water-soluble molecule that rapidly crosses the blood-brain barrier and quickly establishes and maintains an equilibrium concentration between what\u2019s in the blood and what\u2019s in the brain.<\/span><\/p>\n

Blood is a terrible surrogate for learning the amount of THC in the brain. It\u2019s used because we blindly follow the precedence set by alcohol, perhaps even believing the pot lobby\u2019s mantra that marijuana should be regulated like alcohol. It\u2019s also used because we haven\u2019t proven anything else that\u2019s any better. Oral fluid likely is somewhat better, but that may only be because it can be collected more quickly at the roadside.<\/span><\/p>\n

Blood is a terrible surrogate because unlike alcohol, THC is a very large fat-soluble molecule. This results in three major differences in behavior compared to alcohol:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. THC crosses the blood-brain barrier much more slowly than alcohol. This is why studies show that the blood level of THC can be dropping at the same time that the feeling of being high is increasing.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. THC migrates very rapidly from the blood to the body\u2019s fat stores. This is why the THC level in blood drops by 90% within the first hour after smoking, even though the metabolic half-life of THC is estimated to be about four days.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Because of the high fat content in the brain, THC remains in the brain long after it can no longer be detected in the blood. This is why pot users consistently have higher levels of THC in their brains than in their blood, according to autopsy results.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Perhaps this explains why researchers agree that marijuana impairs driving, but none claim there is a good correlation between blood levels of THC and impairment.<\/span><\/p>\n

    The fact is that there is no level of THC above which, everyone is impaired, and below which, no one is impaired.<\/span><\/p>\n

    The same is true of alcohol. In spite of common belief, the .08 BAC limit wasn\u2019t determined by science. It can\u2019t be, due to the reality of biological variability. The .08 BAC limit was determined by politicians, using scientific input as well as societal input. That explains why the alcohol per se limit varies from .02 to .08 gm\/dl in various developed countries of the world, and those countries based their decision all on the same science! It\u2019s other societal inputs such as risk tolerance and desire for freedom that come into play to make that decision.<\/span><\/p>\n

    None of this proves it\u2019s safe to drive after smoking pot. It\u2019s not. It simply explains why a defined per se limit of THC in blood that proves someone is impaired can never be supported by science.<\/span><\/p>\n

    This also may explain why the preferred means to deal with drug impaired driving is not to establish per se limits, but rather to establish a zero tolerance policy for mind altering drugs in a driver that has been shown to be impaired.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    Source:\u00a0 http:\/\/www.duidvictimvoices.org\/<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 April 2015<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Let us provide a rational answer to a nonsensical question. It is a nonsensical question because blood is never impaired by THC. Never. Alcohol doesn\u2019t impair blood either. These drugs only impair the brain, not the blood. We can only test for drug content in the brain by means of an autopsy, something most drivers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-effects-of-drugs","category-legal-sector"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}