NEVADA SUPREME COURT REJECTS MARIJUANA USER'S DRIVING BID

A California woman who legally smoked marijuana in her home state and
then drove across the Nevada state line with an "inactive" marijuana
metabolite in her system is still guilty under the state's impaired
driving law, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled.

Shira Garfinkel was convicted in Incline Justice Court of being over
the legal limit of marijuana metabolite, which is the "inactive"
substance the body produces to get rid of marijuana's active
ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC.

Her lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Priscilla Nielson appealed, arguing
that since the metabolite is an "inactive" substance, it "does not
affect the person's ability to drive" and the law is
unconstitutional.

Justices Nancy Saitta, Michael Cherry and Mark Gibbons
disagreed.

In a sharply worded unpublished decision, which means the ruling only
applies to this case and does not set legal precedence, the justices
said they already ruled in another case that the law appropriately
applies to both marijuana's active ingredient and the metabolite, and
they don't need to "revisit that decision."

They also dismissed Garfinkel's claims that the law "interferes with
her right to travel" because she is a legal user of marijuana in
California and Nevada's DUI law would keep her from crossing the state
line.

The law does not prohibit her from traveling, the justices said, "it
criminalizes her driving a motor vehicle through the state with
prohibited substances in her blood and urine."

Nielson said she was "somewhat discouraged" with the ruling, and said
she has not yet decided if she'll ask the full court to review the
case.

"I'm disappointed that they did not apply a legal analysis, they just
looked at the bottom line of the Williams case," Nielson said.

Jessica Williams was convicted in 2002 of running over and killing six
teenagers after smoking marijuana. She appealed, and the high court
affirmed her conviction, saying the law served two legitimate state
interests: promoting highway safety and deterring the illicit use of
drugs, Nielson said.

Nielson said that neither of those points apply in this case. The
metabolite does not impact driving ability because it's inactive, and
the drug use in this case was legal, she said.

According to William Anderson, chief toxicologist at the Washoe County
crime lab, regular users of marijuana would have an almost continual
level of metabolite in their systems.

Garfinkel was stopped for speeding on Tahoe Boulevard early in 2010
and charged with driving with a prohibited amount of a prohibited
substance. She has a doctor-approved cannabis card that allows her to
use the drug, under California law.

At her trial in Incline Village Justice Court, Judge Alan Tiras said
she was not guilty of having THC in her system. Her test showed she
had 2 nanograms of the THC, the legal limit. But since the test is
plus-or-minus 1 nanogram, he did not convict her.

But he found her guilty of having the metabolite in her system. The
test measured 20 nanograms of metabolite and the legal limit is 5
nanograms. She appealed to Washoe District Court and Judge Perry
affirmed Tiras' ruling.

The next took her argument to the Supreme Court, but the justices
affirmed the conviction.

"Garfinkel's attempts to distinguish her case from Williams by arguing
that in Williams this court grappled only with the prohibition on
active marijuana and did not meaningfully analyze the constitutional
implications of the prohibition of driving while carrying marijuana
metabolite in the blood are unavailing," the ruling said.

In the Williams decision, the justices said, they "rejected the
arguments of those who claimed that the law 'lacked a direct
correlation between the prohibited drugs in a driver's system and
impairment.'"