Impact of legal marijuana on driving in Maryland is tough to gauge, and enforcing impaired driving laws is complicated – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

At the end of June, as many Marylanders eagerly anticipated buying recreational marijuana legally for the first time, Sgt. Thomas Morehouse was worried about the safety of Baltimore County’s roads.

Morehouse, a certified drug recognition expert for the Baltimore County Police Department, was concerned about residents lighting up and then getting behind the wheel after July 1.

“Every state that has legalized recreational cannabis has seen increases in fatal crashes, injury crashes, property damage crashes and other irresponsible driving because of impairment by cannabis, so I don’t expect Maryland to be any different,” Morehouse said in a June interview with The Baltimore Sun.

Several factors make it hard to gauge the impact of recreational weed on driving in Maryland so far.

A look at statewide crash data showed a small uptick in traffic crashes in July compared to previous years, according to the Maryland State Police. But enforcing traffic laws when it comes to cannabis consumption is complicated — there is no widely used breath test to detect it and experts say proving impairment from a blood test can be challenging.

Further, the number of arrests for driving while impaired with alcohol in July dwarfed the number of arrests for driving high in Baltimore City and the counties of Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll and Harford, with only a handful of traffic arrests related to cannabis, according to law enforcement agency data.

“Just as people shouldn’t drink and…