While state legislators are trying to reduce fatalities on Connecticut highways, they haven’t been able to agree on the next steps regarding drivers smoking pot or drinking alcohol.
Republicans said that marijuana is a major problem on the highways, but their amendment to make it easier for police officers to pull over pot-smoking drivers was defeated by the Democratic-controlled committee by 19-14.
The amendment was part of a broader bill to lower the threshold for arrest for drunken driving from a blood alcohol concentration of .08% to .05%. The only state that currently has the .05 level is Utah. But lawmakers also could not reach a broad consensus on alcohol as Democrats and Republicans split on the issue that passed narrowly.
Republicans said they do not believe it is a coincidence that fatalities have increased since the legislature approved the decriminalization of marijuana in June 2021. But lawmakers from both parties said they lack detailed information regarding the impact of marijuana on accidents. Retail sales of marijuana did not become legal in Connecticut until January 2023, and comprehensive statistics are not available in real-time.
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Democrats noted that the state now has 72 “drug recognition experts” who can check for impairment and will be better able to document marijuana use.
Lawmakers are examining a package of bills to improve road safety as the transportation committee faces a deadline Friday in a short legislative session that ends on May 8.
Rep. Thomas O’Dea, a New Canaan Republican, cited a provision that was passed as part of the marijuana law that says that “the odor of cannabis or burnt cannabis” cannot be used as the sole reason for probable cause for an officer to pull over a driver.
“That’s insanity. It defies logic,” O’Dea told committee members. “We argued this on the floor of the House. It makes no sense. If a police officer sees a person drinking a beer while driving, the police can use that as probable cause to pull that person over. If a police officer observes a person holding a bong in their hand, and the police officer sees that, can they pull the person over for holding a bong or a roach? My understanding is they can’t.”
Rep. Roland Lemar, a New Haven Democrat who co-chairs the committee, said the driver could be pulled over for reckless driving if that was the case.
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“The reason why I am so apoplectic about this is because of other issues,” O’Dea said. “We’re literally encouraging people — smoke marijuana and gummies. Just don’t drink. … And we wonder why there are more deaths on our highways?”
Mark Mirko / Hartford Courant
Connecticut State Representative Tom O’Dea says Connecticut should change the law on allowing police to pull over drivers who are smoking marijuana. Here, he reacts after his name was called in the past on opening day at the start of the legislative session.
In one of the contentious issues of the day, O’Dea offered an amendment to change the state law and allow police officers to stop drivers if they see the driver has been using marijuana.
“It allows a police officer, if they see someone smoking marijuana … you can pull them over,” O’Dea said. “If you see a driver smoking dope, you can pull him over. This, I guarantee you, will save lives. I know I’m a little passionate about this. If you really want to impact the safety of our roadways, this will do it.”
In Stamford, O’Dea said, “When I am walking to buy lunch, I smell marijuana coming out of vehicles.”
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But Lemar and other Democrats opposed the amendment, saying that the issue in traffic safety should be focused on alcohol. Democrats also said the amendment could jeopardize the underlying bill, and the issue would instead by addressed in a separate bill by the legislature’s judiciary committee on Wednesday.
“I don’t know, frankly, if this is the right way to address the issue,” Lemar said. “It is almost impossible to tell, from the side of the road, whether a person has been smoking marijuana or not. If you’re speeding or operating the car recklessly and the officer smells or sees marijuana, they can test for impairment.”
Rep. Devin Carney, a Republican, said that he recently pulled over at a rest area off Interstate 95 and personally saw a person in the driver’s seat of a car who was smoking a joint. Carney said he did not see the person drive away, but he noted the anecdote was illustrative.
“We are sending the wrong message when we say you can drive by a police officer, light up a joint, and there is nothing the police officer can do,” Carney told fellow committee members.
After losing the debate over marijuana, O’Dea and some other Republicans eventually voted against the bill regarding lowering the alcohol level to .05%.
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“I’m not sure this is going to save a life,” O’Dea said, adding that he was sure that his marijuana amendment would save lives.
But Sen. Tony Hwang, the committee’s ranking Senate Republican, voted in favor, saying he hopes to change the culture around drinking.
“The saddest part is it is a preventable tragedy,” Hwang said. “It should not be a coincidence … that the marijuana legalization, combined with alcohol, have contributed to these kind of road fatalities and road dangers. For us to pass a bill only looking at blood alcohol level and rejecting these amendments related to cannabis as it affects safety on our roads, I think, we, as a committee, are only doing part of our job. … We should have accepted those amendments, in addition to blood alcohol content. It weighs on me that we, as a committee, only went halfway on this.”
While noting that the legislature can pass many laws, Hwang said, “But you can’t teach common sense.”
He added, “If we don’t support law enforcement to enforce these laws, it’s going to be tragedy as usual. … If we’re handcuffing one hand behind their back and we’re not addressing the other issues of impairment, I really believe we are doing an incomplete job.”
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But Rep. Kate Farrar, a West Hartford Democrat, said legislators are making their best efforts to stop tragedies on the roads.
“Are we doing everything we can?” Farrar asked. “We know that lowering this blood alcohol level can save lives. … I do hope that all of our colleagues, again, take seriously that we really have taken this moment to do everything we can to protect the residents of our state.”
Utah
Utah became the first state to lower the blood alcohol level in 2018 and has seen a drop of 19.8% in fatal crashes.
Dropping the level, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, would lower the death rate in Connecticut by an estimated 11%. Like Connecticut, other states that are currently considering .05 are Hawaii, Washington, New York, North Carolina and others.
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Nationally, 13,384 people died in the United States in alcohol-related crashes in 2021, the most recent year where complete numbers are available. That includes 112 alcohol-related deaths in Connecticut.
The .05 measure is part of a broader plan to reduce a skyrocketing number of fatalities on Connecticut roads. Legislators were stunned at 366 deaths on the roads in 2022 — about one per day. The statistics show that 2022 was the worst year on Connecticut roads since 1989. While fatalities dipped to 323 last year, the accidents are continuing this year.
The national standard is .08% that states have enacted in order to avoid losing funding for federal highway construction. As a result, Connecticut is currently at the same level as nearby New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
Lawmakers were already working on the problem of wrong-way crashes, but they vowed to redouble their efforts following the death last year of state Rep. Quentin “Q” Williams. The Middletown Democrat was killed in early January 2023 when his car was hit by a wrong-way driver shortly after Williams had left the governor’s inaugural ball in Hartford. Both drivers were legally drunk and both had marijuana in their system.
Rep. Aimee Berger-Girvalo, a Ridgefield Democrat, cited recent testimony by the National Transportation Safety Board that alcohol is a larger problem than marijuana. She also cited the death of Williams last year in a head-on collision.
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“This will reduce fatal crashes, and that is the point,” she said of the bill.
State Rep. Aimee Berger-Girvalo. a Ridgefield Democrat, supports lowering the blood alcohol level to .05% in order to reduce accidents and fatalities. She speaks here on the House floor in February. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)
State Sen. Christine Cohen, the committee’s co-chairwoman, said that 2022 marked the highest deaths on Connecticut roadways in the past three decades, but the fatalities have continued this year at a steady pace.
“We know from the [transportation] commissioner that 2024 is on track to be even deadlier,” Cohen said. “I really do believe this is a multifaceted issue and deserves a multifaceted approach.”
Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com
Have you still seen a lot of mini-liquor bottles, littering the streets in Connecticut?
Members of one environmental group said they still see them, and believe a ban is the best way to solve a multi-tiered problem.
State data shows in the past 12 months, ending September 30, there were more than 93 million mini-liquor bottles sold in our state.
The group supporting local bans says it’s not just the litter, but also the fact mini-liquor bottles are easy to conceal and consume on the job, in the car, or at school.
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The group “Connecticut Towns Nixing the Nip” met this week, working on strategies to get a legislative hearing on the issue in the upcoming 2026 session.
Right now, stores collect a 5-cent surcharge for every mini-liquor bottle sold, resulting in about $5 million annually for town and city environmental cleanup efforts.
Town funding from nip sales
Average revenue per year 2021 to 2025.
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“Having talked to a number of towns, well a few towns, they like the money, said Tom Metzner, a member of the group. “It’s fairly broad in how it can be used. It’s environmental. It doesn’t have to be used for cleaning up nips. And so the towns have become somewhat silent on the issue of banning nips.”
The group cited Chelsea, Massachusetts, where minis are banned, both litter and alcohol related EMS calls decreased.
The Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of Connecticut, which devised the “nickel per nip” program, said banning the mini-liquor bottles would be unprecedented.
Instead, it said the environmental group should be challenging municipalities to prove they actually use the money for cleanup.
Legislative leaders suggested several years ago the way to really do this is to have a redemption program for mini liquor bottles, and now, that could be possible.
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At least one state with the Clynk bottle collection program has redeemed mini-liquor bottles for cash.
The company just announced a major expansion in our state, but it told us it is not aware of a redemption program for mini-liquor bottles here any time soon.
National trust in the federal government is at some of its lowest levels in nearly seven decades, and many Connecticut residents fall in line with that belief, a survey found.
New data from the Pew Research Center found only 17% of Americans believe that what the government does is right either “just about always” or “most of the time,” hitting one of the lowest points Pew has seen since first asking this question in 1958. And according to a DataHaven survey, Connecticut residents trust the federal government less than state or local institutions.
While these are some of the lowest polling numbers seen in American history, national trust in the federal government has been on the decline for decades. Public trust initially dropped in the 1960s and ’70s during the Vietnam War from a near 80% but began rising again in the 1980s into the early ’90s. Trust peaked again after 9/11 before falling.
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The DataHaven survey found that of all Connecticut residents surveyed, only 9% trust the federal government “a great deal” to look out for the best interests of them and their family. About 28% trust the federal government “a fair amount.”
Federal government trust among Connecticut residents was at its highest in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the federal stimulus programs and child tax credit were active.
The DataHaven survey also asked about trust in local and state government. Connecticut residents generally trust these institutions more than they trust the federal government, the survey found.
Trust in the local governments was higher than trust in both state and federal, with 67% of residents surveyed trusting their local government “a great deal” or “a fair amount.”
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And when it came to state government, 61% of residents trust the state “a great deal” or “a fair amount.”
However, across the board, white residents are more likely to trust local and state government than are residents of color. Black residents had higher levels of trust in government than Latino and Puerto Rican residents, but less than white residents.
As of early 2025, the Connecticut State Police was facing a staffing shortage of roughly 300 troopers compared to the more than 1,200 troopers the department had in its ranks over a decade ago. This is due largely to retirements, resignations and a shrinking applicant pool.
Recent academy classes are helping slowly rebuild staffing, but Gov. Ned Lamont and police leadership say Connecticut still needs substantially more troopers to meet public safety demands. More recently, news outlets reported the department had 938 troopers.
This spring, troopers negotiated a 4.5% wage hike with state officials. Troopers’ base pay is on average about $116,000 per year, but that rises to $175,000 per year once overtime is included.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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CT Mirror partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims.
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Reginald David is the Community Engagement Reporter for CT Mirror. He builds relationships across Connecticut to elevate community voices and deepen public dialogue around local issues. Previously, he was a producer at KCUR 89.3, Kansas City’s NPR station, where he created community-centered programming, led live event coverage for major events like the NFL Draft, the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl Parade, and Royals Opening Day, and launched KC Soundcheck, a music series spotlighting local and national artists. Reginald has also hosted special segments, including an in-depth interview with civil rights leader Alvin Brooks and live community coverage on issues like racial segregation and neighborhood development. He began his public media career as an ‘Integrity in News’ intern at WNPR in Hartford.
