Expert: Robin Sexton - 5/19/2008

Question
Hi Robin. I'm seventeen and I recently got into a one car accident, totaling my mercury on a tree alongside a road near my house. I had smoked marijuana about two hours before the incident, and smelling my car, the police suspected my use. The officer read a form telling me that if i didn't submit to a blood test my license would be suspended for a year indefinitely, and I complied. I am a regular user. I read on the Internet that the tests detect marijuana metabolites, or inert byproducts produced after a substance is metabolized by the body. The results of the test have not been revealed to me at the time that I am typing this. In law, are there different "levels" of marijuana intoxication?  Are the tests the police are using advanced enough to indicate when I was intoxicated and when I was not? I'm not sure what else to ask, but I find the method of testing the concentration of the metabolized drug unsettling, and I fear that I will be slammed for having smoked on previous days. Any information you could provide to me on this subject would be appreciated.

Answer
John,

To my knowledge there is no qualitative test for marijuana intoxication. In Michigan any level of a controlled substance is illegal. The law is usually written that it is illegal to have an illegal substances in your system.  If a subject has a barbiturate in his system and has a prescription for a barbiturate then the evidence would need to show that the barbiturate contributed to the accident.  For allot of there drugs there is a theoretical or known therapeutic level.
Blood test depending on the labs can take weeks to months to get results. I suggest that you take the opportunity to consult with a local criminal attorney for guidance on this.

Hope this helped, please feel free to ask a follow up question


Good luck

Robin