In 2020, Nevada dispensaries sold nearly $700 million dollars worth of cannabis and derivative products.
With a higher blood alcohol content comes an increased level of impairment, a near linear relationship, but intoxication is not as predictable based on a blood level limit for THC.
Numerous studies show that an infrequent user may experience pronounced effects when consuming small amounts of THC, but a daily medical cannabis user, for instance, may exhibit no reduction in psychomotor ability after use, yet they would likely be convicted of DUI if their blood were tested while driving.
“What this means in practice is that you have little or no ability to defend yourself against DUI charges, if your blood test comes back with results above those numbers, your only real defense is that you were not the one driving or that the blood tested was not, in fact, your blood,” Yeager said.
A Nevada motorist can get a DUI for prescription drugs, but there are no per se blood level limits for these substances at which a person is presumed to be intoxicated.
“Law enforcement officers in this state are already trained to recognize the signs of impairment due to drug usage, illegal or otherwise,” Yeager said.
The bill also mandated that only a blood test for THC or THC metabolites could be used in court, yet with the passage of AB135, Nevada remained one of a handful of states to retain the per se limit for THC.
“This is not a matter of we need more study, or we haven’t done the studies,” Armentano said.
The list of “controlled or prohibited” substances regarding workers compensation claims mirrors those on the federal List of Controlled Substances, which includes drugs like heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide , cocaine, and others.
The legislation saw a tiny bit of bipartisan support in the Senate where it passed by a 15 to 6 margin.