Page 6 - Ohio Propane News, Winter

Feature
MARIJUANA IS LEGAL IN OHIO – NOW WHAT?
Last month, voters throughout Ohio legalized the use of mari- juana for a multitude of reasons. Today, you may be wondering what does this mean for me, my business and my drivers. You are not alone.
In 2019 the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) released its first research publication on the impact of marijua- na legalization on the trucking industry. The report, Marijuana Legalization and Impaired Driving: Solutions for Protecting our Roadways, focused on legalization trends and roadway safety. The key findings of that research included:
• More robust data collection is needed at the state- and federal-level to understand the prevalence and safety out- comes that result from marijuana-impaired driving.
• Safety campaigns must be employed to mitigate driv- ing while impaired by marijuana, particularly among non-commercial drivers.
• Law enforcement requires better tools and more train- ing to identify marijuana-impaired driving; a quantitative field sobriety testing device does not currently exist.
With more jurisdictions legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana, ATRI’s Research Advisory Committee (RAC) voted in 2022 to
conduct research that focused on the impacts of marijuana on the trucking industry’s workforce.
While the use of marijuana (and specifically its active drug tet- rahydrocannabinol [THC]) is legal in many states for medical or recreational purposes, it remains illegal to operate a vehicle while impaired by the drug. Driving while impaired can result in increased safety risks as well as fines, loss of driving privileges and imprisonment.
Those who work in safety-sensitive federally regulated positions are prohibited from using marijuana and are subject to testing for controlled substances. For these workers, a positive test for past drug use can result in termination of employment. In the trucking industry in particular, those who possess a commercial driver’s license (CDL) are held to this standard. In order to oper- ate a large truck, CDL drivers are required by federal law to pass a test for marijuana and other drugs in several situations, includ- ing pre-employment, post-accident, randomly and in instances where there is reasonable suspicion of drug use.
More than half of all positive trucking industry drug tests are for marijuana metabolite according to the Federal Motor Carri-
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