Arizona Marijuana DUI Laws Under Inspection

A Phoenix attorney has started a petition to the State’s Supreme Court asking to make the marijuana DUI laws more specific. According to Michael Alarid, the laws on Arizona’s marijuana DUI laws will implicate a driver who has used marijuana in the past thirty days. He claims that Arizona’s laws have not kept up with the loosening of restrictions of marijuana use. Arizona is one of eighteen states which has legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Alarid said that it is possible to be convicted of DUI when a blood test proves that the driver is not impaired. He is fighting to overturn a client’s 2010 DUI conviction based on the grounds that his client was indeed not “high” when he was pulled over for making an unsafe lane change. He argues that the psychoactive element in marijuana may not to present in a person’s system, but the metabolite Carboxy-THC may be, which can remain in a person’s system for up to one month.

The Supreme Court was petitioned last week, and it may be a couple of months before the justices even hear the case.