Florida's DUI/DWI Law Change Could Lead to Conviction of Sober People

Florida DUI/DWI Law Change could lead to conviction fo sober people

SB 1810 is sitting in several Florida Senate committees and would revise the state’s law regarding DUI in several ways: It changes the name of the offense from “driving under the influence” to “driving while impaired” and adds provisions for blood and urine testing, which sound like relatively minor changes when you consider the big change: what authorities are testing for.
What they’re testing for is drug metabolites, which means if you smoke marijuana on Friday and get pulled over the following Tuesday with evidence of it in your urine, you could get hit with charges of driving while impaired even if you were stone sober on the roads.
The new bill keeps the state’s .08 blood alcohol concentration limit but adds a provision that states a person is guilty of DUI/DWI if his blood or urine tests positive for controlled substances, which doesn’t sound too unreasonable until you get to the section that adds “or one of its metabolites,” which means the tests include the chemicals left behind by the process of absorbing drugs.
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Blogger notes on this issue: This would essentially create a situation where drivers could be arrested and charged with DUI/DWI charges even if they were totally sober at the time of driving, as drug metabolites can remain in ones body hours and even days after the effects of the drug(s) have worn off.