Politics The Shake: California Could Test Drivers for Cannabis, and Has Vermont Legalization Hit a Wall? Ben Adlin April 7, 2016 Share Twitter Facebook Share Print

Is Vermont’s push to legalize losing steam? Earlier this year, the state was poised to become the first in the U.S. to legalize cannabis for adult use by an act of the Legislature, rather than a ballot initiative. But after the Senate approved the legalization bill and it landed in the House, the chair of a key panel announced she’s starting over from scratch. House Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Maxine Grad (D-Moretown) indicated that instead of supporting a legal, regulated market, she thinks the state should simply decriminalize home cultivation. The upshot, writes Marijuana Majority founder Tom Angell: Advocates may be forced to choose between legal markets without homegrow and limited homegrow with no legal sales. Bureaucratic deadlines are already getting in the way, Angell writes: “Unless the House is willing to adopt the Senate bill or something close to it, it’s unclear at this point if anything will cross the legislative finish line this year.”

A California lawmaker wants to test your spit for THC. “Sadly, we’ve become a nation of self-medicating, careless people,” said state Sen. Bob Huff (R-San Dimas), who authored a bill, SB 1462, that would allow law enforcement officers to use oral swabs to test drivers for cannabis use. “The public is naïve in understanding how dangerous our roads are by people who are abusing opiates, meth, and cannabis,” he tells the L.A. Times. OK, wait, hold on. Nobody’s arguing it’s a smart idea to drive while high (though science says it’s way less dangerous than driving drunk). But if the public is “naïve,” Sen. Huff, you’re simply ignorant: Even the federal government, which pushes prohibition at every turn, acknowledges there’s no consensus on how the amount of THC in people’s blood affects their levels of impairment. As NORMAL California director Dale Gieringer tells the Times, oral swab testing is still an unproven technology. “Its accuracy has not been demonstrated in controlled, published scientific studies.” Before we risk criminalizing responsible cannabis users, let’s make sure the technology works, yeah?

Regulators recommend Washington state testing lab lose license. Patients and consumers in the state have been slowly waking up to the fact that dangerous pesticides are being used on products, and now auditors have uncovered “consistent inaccuracies” in test data from Poulsbo-based Testing Technologies, one of 14 state-certified labs. Regulators say testers there showed “blatant disregard for good laboratory practices as well as sound scientific methods,” according to the Seattle Times' Bob Young. Critics have complained the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) hasn’t done enough to make pesticides a priority, and some in the industry have been pushing to police themselves. In related news, the LCB on Thursday issued emergency rules that step up standards for testing labs. Expect more movement on this front before long.

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Ben Adlin Ben Adlin is a Seattle-based writer and editor who specializes in cannabis politics and law. He was a news editor for Leafly from 2015-2019. Follow him on Twitter: @badlin View Ben Adlin's articles