Subject: Last Chance To Oppose Zero Tolerance Marijuana Measure
Kentucky legislators are trying to misuse the state’s traffic safety laws to target and prosecute adults who use marijuana responsibly in the privacy of their own home. It’s up to you to stop them.
Senate Bill 5, an act to criminalize anyone who operates a motor vehicle with any detectable level of marijuana in their blood, was recently approved by the state Senate and is now before the House of Representatives. It is imperative that you contact your elected officials today and urge them to stop this misguided campaign against responsible cannabis consumers.
If passed, Senate Bill 5 would mandate criminal penalties for any person who operates a motor vehicle with any measurable level of THC in their blood. This proposal would improperly impact cannabis consumers because THC can remain detectable at low levels in the blood of daily marijuana users for up to 1 or 2 days after past use. In the case of chronic smokers, THC may be detectable in the blood for even longer periods of time. (More information on this subject is available from NORML here.)
Someone who smokes marijuana is impaired as a driver — at most — for a few hours, not days. To treat marijuana smokers as if they are impaired, even when the drug’s effects have long worn off, is illogical and unfair.
In addition, Kentucky already has laws on the books targeting and prosecuting drivers who operate a motor vehicle “under the influence” of illicit drugs. Senate Bill 5 creates a separate crime of “drugged driving” that is, potentially, divorced from impairment and that could jail motorists for simply having consumed an illicit substance at some prior, unspecified date.
Please take a moment today to contact your representative and urge them to oppose Senate Bill 5. If your representative sits on the House Judiciary Committee then it is especially important that he or she hears from you. For your convenience, a pre-written letter will be e-mailed to your state representatives when you go here.
Thank you for supporting NORML’s marijuana law reform efforts in Kentucky.
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Zero Tolerance means Zero Justice:
In other words any laws based on Zero Tolerance for (insert problem here) is mostly if not all about vengeance rather then working justice to improve us from our human flaws.