With medical and adult-use marijuana legal in Ohio, state lawmakers will again consider a bill retooling how drivers could be convicted of cannabis intoxication, whether they’re operating a car or operating a boat.
Sen. Nathan Manning (R-North Ridgeville) has introduced a version of Senate Bill 55 in the last two legislative sessions, although both stalled in committee. The bill changes prohibited concentration limits in urine and blood tests—including by eliminating measured marijuana metabolites in a person’s urine, blood serum, or plasma from determining a per se charge.
Under the Ohio Revised Code, OVI “per se” charges come when a person is found to have a prohibited amount of alcohol or drugs in their system. Tests of marijuana metabolites don’t show whether someone is actively under the influence, though, since traces of marijuana could still register anywhere from days to weeks after someone has consumed it.
“Whether you like it or not, marijuana is legal, and we don’t want to punish people for doing something that’s legal,” Manning said Wednesday. “It’s not as clear cut as alcohol so we’re just trying to work through that.”
SB 55 instead adds an evidentiary standard. When it comes to the less common whole blood test, SB 55 also more than doubles the per se concentration limit from two nanograms per milliliter to five nanograms per milliliter.
Manning is working on per se standards for oral fluid, he said, which the state only recently permit law enforcement agencies to test for alcohol and drugs.
When asked Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio (D-Lakewood) said she’d let the committee process take place before she took her stance.
“I think it has promise, but I need to know a lot more about it,” Antonio said.
The Ohio State Bar Association and Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers were proponents last go around, while an OVI victims advocacy organization switched from being a proponent to an opponent. SB 55 got its first committee hearing Wednesday.
