Police learn about Medical Marijuana
Law Enforcement Trains for Challenges in the Medical Marijuana Age.
Challenges faced by law enforcement in the medical marijuana age brought together police, probation officers and park rangers for training at the Adams County Emergency Services Center Tuesday.
“This was our first step. I want all of my officers to have this training,” said Cumberland Township Police Chief Matt Trostel, an attendee.
“It definitely benefits the guy on the patrol level,” he said, adding the emphasis now is “trying to move officers to concern about impairment rather than possession.”
Instructor Jim French of the Pennsylvania Driving Under the Influence (DUI) Association explained the changes thrust on law enforcement by passage of the Medical Marijuana Act in 2016.
“People think if it’s medical marijuana it’s OK to use and drive, but buzzed driving” is the same as drunk driving, which is impaired driving, said French, a former Baltimore City officer and Maryland state trooper who is now a drug recognition expert with the DUI Association.
Impaired driving is the major concern for the law enforcement community.
“If you see impairment, it’s impairment,” he said.
Before legalization, an officer who smelled marijuana had cause to search a vehicle. Now the odor is not sufficient cause for a search, French said.
According to Pennsylvania law, possession of many forms of cannabis is legal if an individual has a medical marijuana card. A card holder who gets pulled over for exceeding the speed limit can’t be charged with possession if there is a legal form of cannabis in the car, he said.
For the police officer who stops such a vehicle, however, it’s often difficult to distinguish the illegal from the legal. Cannabidiol (CBD), for example, “looks like weed, smells like weed,” French said.
CBD is legal for anyone, not just medical marijuana card holders, and “everyone is selling it ... even the Amish are selling it,” French said.
CBD has no psychoactive effects and won’t make a user high because it’s made mainly from hemp, a form of cannabis with a lower THC level.
The substance in marijuana that causes the high is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is legal only for card holders. Illegal THC and legal CBD can be impossible to tell apart visually, so an officer could be facing a car with “a mother lode” of what looks like THC that is really CBD, he said.
It needs to be lab tested.
“Tell people that we have to check because we can’t tell by sight (but) we’ll be bringing something back. We’ll be bringing the CBD back or bringing a warrant,” French said.
At times, especially when French discussed testing of confiscated products or suspects’ blood, the police seminar seemed more like chemistry class. There are different forms of THC, including 11-hydroxy THC, Delta-9 carboxy THC, and Delta-8 THC, he explained.
The timing of a blood test is important since the different forms of THC metabolize at different rates and the presence of various metabolites can indicate when the substance was used, he said.
French also discussed an ongoing study involving samples of brain tissue taken from cadavers. Even if no THC is in the blood, “THC is sticking around in the brain. We don’t know how it affects” long-term health, he said.
