Caught Drug Driving?

Driving convictions involving cannabis (tetrahydrocannabinol – THC) will trigger a licence suspension of a minimum of 12 months. Beyond losing privileges, expect large fines up to £5000 plus potential 6-month imprisonment. Permanent criminal records also follow that you will be required to disclose on any PVG or enhanced disclosure application. If facing charges, seek expert legal guidance immediately and halt any cannabis intake. The law is very hard on the use of cannabis around vehicles and unfortunately, it is not a defence that you require your licence for work.

Stay educated on the intricacies of cannabis driving laws and testing limitations. Assumed harmlessness carries grave outcomes when cars meet THC.

There is no fixed timeframe for how long tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active component in cannabis, remains detectable in driving tests. THC metabolites linger longer for some based on individual body chemistry, genetics, frequency of smoking, weed strength ingested, and testing method sensitivities. Regular smokers retain compounds longer, while occasional users process them faster. It varies from person to person.

In simple terms – there is no way to know whether you are below the prescribed limit other than to scientifically test yourself!

The roadside saliva test works differently to a urine or blood test. It is designed to be a presumptive test, and simply produces a pass or fail result. This can then be used to determine whether a more scientifically accurate test should be carried out. The presumptive roadside saliva test however, is likely to catch out cannabis smokers up to 24 hours after use, well after the effects have worn off.

For blood tests, scientific studies have shown THC will reach a peak concentration within 3 – 10 minutes after the onset of smoking. A single joint containing on average of about 25 milligrams of THC will cause a peak concentration of anywhere between 84.3 – 162 micrograms (the legal limit being 2 micrograms!) A single joint will cause an average peak concentration of 120 micrograms within 8 minutes. This will then drop rapidly over the following 4 – 6 hours, with a blood concentration of 2 micrograms expected to be reached within 7 – 12 hours. If the user is a regular smoker, then this time will increase exponentially depending on the quantity and the strength of the cannabis consumed. What is important to note that in some tests THC has been found in the blood of users up to 30 days after consumption!

From the 21 October 2019, new drug driving laws came into force in Scotland, which effectively introduced a “zero tolerance” approach to drug driving.

The current legal limit for THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, is incredibly low. It’s set at 2 micrograms per litre of blood, and to put that into perspective, a recent study showed that a single ‘puff’ on a cannabis joint produced an average immediate blood THC concentration of 18 micrograms (9 times the legal limit). The legal limit for Heroin is 5 micrograms per litre of blood, Cocaine is 10 micrograms. It, therefore, shows you just how incredibly low the prescribed limit for cannabis is. So, it’s crucial to understand the severity of the prescribed limit for cannabis.

There are many different variables that impact on the rate that marijuana is both metabolized and excreted by the body, which make it impossible to work out with any certainly when an individual would be able to drive legally.

Individual variables that play a role in how long marijuana stays in your system and can be detected include:

• Body fat: People with more body fat will retain THC for longer.
• Method and frequency of usage: Infrequent users clear THC faster than chronic users.
• Strength of cannabis and method of ingestion: The effects and rate of metabolism are quite different if cannabis is, for example, eaten, giving a much slower onset and much longer effect.
• Genetics: Fast metabolizers will excrete THC rapidly.
• General health: Many medical conditions impact on how your body retains, stores, and metabolizes marijuana. A major problem for chronic cannabis users is storage in fat – the release of THC (at low concentration) from fat can take place over weeks or months and may be detected by oral swab for this length of time.
• Type of detection test used (blood, hair, saliva, or urine)