The Michigan legislature was very busy in 2016. During 2016, the Michigan legislature formed the Impaired Driving Safety Commission. This new body was created in the state police department. The goal if this new body was to do research and then decide if there should be a THC threshold. When it comes to drunk driving in Michigan, the threshold is .08 blood alcohol content. This newly formed Commission was made up of members of the Michigan State Police, a forensic toxicologist, a physician, professors, and a medical marijuana patient.
This commission wanted to determine if science supported creating a THC limit. If a driver was at or over this limit, it would become a crime to drive on Michigan roads. On March 26, 2019, the Commission concluded its report. This report made a recommendation that science could not establish a basis for making a specific THC limit a crime for drugged driving.
To sum up the Commission another way: higher limits THC in your system does not mean you are higher than someone who has lower THC in their system. This conclusion is a lot different than drunk driving in Michigan. The higher the bac level, the higher the impairment when it comes to driving on Michigan roads. The main reason for this is because the human body metabolizes THC in a different way. Unlike alcohol, THC is fat soluble. Soluble means the fat gets absorbed into fat cells in the human body. You can have levels of THC in your system for a longer time after your last use.
This report by done by the Michigan Commission reaches the same conclusions as a federal study. A study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in July 2017. NHTSA’s report showed that that higher THC levels in the blood does not mean there will be a higher level of impairment. do not correlate with impairment.
Under current Michigan law, it is illegal to drive a vehicle on any Michigan road when you are impaired by a controlled substance or alcohol. If you feel you are impaired because of THC, please do not drive!