Methods: Colorado court records were reviewed and information regarding charges, presence of alcohol and/or drugs, time of law enforcement contact and blood draw, crash location, and other contextual factors were identified. The distributions of first blood draw times were studied by charge and by responding law enforcement agency. Toxicology data from a different cohort of DUI traffic arrests in Colorado and Washington were examined to determine the proportion of blood tests for THC that were above specified legal limits in those states.
Results: The average time from law enforcement dispatch to blood draw in cases of vehicular homicide and vehicular assault was 2.32 h (SD ± 1.31 h), with a range of 0.83 to 8.0 h and a median of 2.0 h. Data from DUI traffic arrests found that between 42 and 70% of all cannabinoid-positive traffic arrests tested below 5 ng/ml THC in blood, which is the legal limit in Colorado and Washington.
Conclusion: Given the current delays to blood testing in cases of arrests for vehicular homicide and vehicular assault in Colorado, many blood tests are unlikely to confirm that drivers who are impaired from smoking marijuana have THC levels above established legal limits. 相似文献