Pubdate: Mon, 10 Feb 2014
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2014 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: John Ingold

WHEELS SPIN ON CASE DATA

Numbers Are Lacking to Track the Impact of Pot Legalization.

When a 23-year-old Arvada man crashed his pickup into the back of a 
Colorado State Patrol car in January, authorities said it was an 
example of what could be a disturbing trend: a rise in dangerous 
marijuana-impaired driving.

But now, a month later, the case has become an example of a different 
problem: the difficulty of tracking cases of stoned driving.

While a State Patrol spokeswoman said shortly after the collision 
that investigators suspect driver Keith Kilbey was impaired by 
marijuana when the crash happened, neither his official summons nor 
the public accident report mentions pot. A spokeswoman for the Adams 
County district attorney's office, which is prosecuting the case, 
said she couldn't comment on whether officials still contend Kilbey 
was stoned at the time of the crash or whether a blood test was 
taken. A man who answered Kilbey's telephone declined to comment.

In addition to careless driving, Kilbey has been charged with driving 
"under the influence of alcohol or drugs or both," according to his summons.

"In our system, this is handled as a DUI case," district attorney's 
spokeswoman Sue Lindsay said.

And therein lies the challenge in determining whether marijuana 
legalization in Colorado has led to an increase in stoned driving.

There is currently no comprehensive way to track instances of 
marijuana-impaired driving in Colorado. Such cases are charged in 
court under the same law as alcohol-impaired driving cases, meaning 
the two can't be separated in judicial data. Law enforcement agencies 
have not historically kept separate tallies on stoned-driving cases. 
The State Patrol began doing so this year, but it has no numbers 
prior to January to compare the new results to.

"Until we have a solid amount of information, we can't make that 
assessment," said patrol Trooper Josh Lewis.

In the past, officials have pointed to the number of blood-test 
samples in which the state's toxicology lab found marijuana 
derivatives to argue that stoned driving is increasing in Colorado. 
But the lab closed last year amid an integrity scandal, and the only 
two remaining labs in the state certified to do drug testing on blood 
samples say the resulting changes in their workload mean year-to-year 
comparisons are difficult.

"Our volume changed significantly, so it's making my data analysis 
more complicated," said Sarah Urfer, the owner of the ChemaTox 
Laboratory in Boulder.

The question isn't just academic. Whether loosening marijuana laws 
will lead to more stoned drivers is one of the major questions in how 
marijuana legalization will impact Colorado. The federal government 
has identified stoned driving as one of the measures it will look at 
to determine whether legalization succeeds.

"I have not seen honest statistics," said Dr. Robert Lantz, the 
director of the Rocky Mountain Instrumental Laboratories, the other 
lab certified to do blood-drug testing in Colorado. "So I'm waiting 
to see honest data."

What numbers there are paint a blurry picture - albeit one that still 
shows the importance of the topic.

For instance, a study published this year by two researchers at 
Columbia University found evidence that stoned driving has increased 
across the country. Analyzing federal data, the researchers found 
that the percentage of drivers killed in car accidents who tested 
positive for marijuana nearly tripled between 1999 and 2010.

"The most likely explanation is that use of marijuana in the general 
driver population has been increasing, which may reflect increased 
use in the overall population," said Guohua Li, one of the study's authors.

But Li said the federal data cannot show whether the drivers were 
impaired by marijuana at the time of the crash; a positive test may 
indicate use as long as several days prior, he said. And the study 
also didn't look at whether the driver testing positive for marijuana 
was at fault in the crash.

Li's study didn't include data from Colorado because the state 
performs postmortem drug tests on too few drivers in fatal crashes. 
What figures there are for Colorado show a slight increase since 2006 
in fatal-crash drivers positive for marijuana.

Overall, Colorado has not seen an increase in impaired-driving prosecutions.

Since July, there have been 12,567 cases filed across Colorado where 
driving impaired - either by alcohol or drugs, including marijuana - 
was the most serious charge, according to the Colorado Judicial 
Branch. That puts the state on track for a little over 21,500 such 
cases this fiscal year, which is in line with the two previous fiscal 
years. The tallies don't include filings in Denver County Court, 
which average around 3,000 per year.

Alcohol is involved in most DUI convictions in Colorado. According to 
the state Department of Transportation, marijuana was involved in 
only about 1,000 of the 23,500 post-conviction drug-and-alcohol 
evaluations performed for probation purposes.

Overall traffic fatalities are also relatively flat. There were 422 
fatal crashes on Colorado roads in 2013, 12 fewer than in 2012 and 15 
more than in 2011, according to CDOT.

There may soon be other figures on stoned driving in Colorado - Li 
said a federal study based on data from roadside checks is in the 
works. More details on Kilbey's case should come next month, when he 
is scheduled for arraignment in Adams County Court.

And Chris Halsor of the Colorado District Attorneys' Council said 
state officials are also talking about new ways to capture data on 
marijuana and driving, in the hopes that the issue won't remain a 
mystery for much longer.

"I think for all parties involved," Halsor said, "we want to have 
good numbers so we can wrap our head around if this is a problem."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom