Editorial: N.M. must get its pot driving limits in gear

Since 2007, New Mexico has allowed authorized patients to use medical marijuana. And since 2007, efforts to define legal blood levels determining drug intoxication when driving have been stalled.

But now there’s a road map, courtesy of the two states that have legalized recreational use of the narcotic that is still illegal under federal law.

Washington state treats marijuana driving limits as it does those for alcohol, saying drivers in excess of legal standards can’t claim they were sober.

And last week the Colorado House unanimously approved a bill saying drivers are too high if they have more than 5 nanograms of THC (pot’s psychoactive ingredient) per milliliter in their blood. That proposal bars law enforcement from using medical marijuana patient cards as evidence and allows people accused of driving stoned to argue they were sober despite blood levels. Those factors should help protect drivers who exhibit no sign of impairment.

For years, New Mexico lawmakers have been unsuccessful in passing a drugged driving law; those proposals would have allowed therapeutic levels of standard prescription medications and disallowed illegal drugs when behind the wheel. One issue with medical marijuana — approved in New Mexico for treating the effects of cancer, multiple sclerosis, HIV/AIDS and 14 other conditions — is that by design it is purer and stronger than most street-grade pot, and the effects of smoking it follow suit.

Another is that someone hit and killed by a driver impaired by legal medical marijuana is just as dead as someone hit and killed by a driver wasted on illegal street dope or booze. New Mexico lawmakers voted to allow the use of medical cannabis “in a regulated system for alleviating symptoms caused by debilitating medical conditions and their medical treatments,” according to the Department of Health.

It’s time those lawmakers also set a legal standard — be it a presumed level of intoxication, a blood level that can be challenged or a zero tolerance for THC — so both New Mexico’s patients and general public are protected from driving high.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.