TELL CONGRESS TO IDENTIFY IMPAIRED DRIVERS, NOT MARIJUANA SMOKERS

NORML needs your help convincing Congress to reject a pair of bills
that would criminally punish marijuana smokers for 'drugged driving'
simply if inactive marijuana metabolites are detected in their bodily
fluids - even if the individual is neither under the influence nor
impaired to drive.

H.R. 3907, sponsored by Rep. Jon Porter (R-NV), demands that state
legislatures amend their DUID (driving under the influence of drugs)
to enact mandatory minimum penalties for anyone convicted of driving
under the influence of illegal drugs. Under the proposal, states have
until 2006 to pass and enforce DUID laws 'approved by the
Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,'
or lose portions of their federal highway funding.

These bills represent an all out federal assault on the marijuana
smoking community. Because inactive marijuana metabolites (inert
compounds indicative of past drug use) remain detectable in the blood,
and particularly urine, for days and sometimes weeks after past use,
this legislation seeks to define sober drivers as if they were
intoxicated. Someone who smokes marijuana is impaired as a driver at
most for a few hours; certainly not for days or weeks. To treat all
marijuana smokers as if they are impaired, even when the drug's
effects have long worn off, is illogical and unfair.

At a minimum, laws targeting drug drivers should identify 'parent
drugs' (i.e., THC), not simply inactive drug metabolites, and have
scientifically sound cut-off levels similar to those that exist for
drunk driving. 'Zero tolerance' laws are neither a safe nor sensible
way to identify impaired drivers; they are an attempt to misuse the
traffic safety laws in order to identify and prosecute marijuana
smokers per se.

Please take two minutes to contact your member of the House of
Representatives and tell them that these proposed per se laws are
neither fair nor sound public policy.