Amendment 3: Will pot legalization spark a stoned driving epidemic in Florida?

As Florida voters consider legalizing marijuana in November, opponents are painting a scary picture of what might happen: an epidemic of stoned driving that will make the state’s roads more dangerous and deadly.

But the research from other states that have legalized pot isn’t conclusive, and backers of Amendment 3 argue treating the drug like alcohol — making it legal but regulated — will make Floridians safer.

Two of Florida’s largest and most influential law enforcement groups are opposed to the measure, convinced it will lead to more deaths on the road.

If they need an example, they can highlight the horrific May accident in Ocala that killed eight farmworkers. Their bus was hit by a truck driven by a man who told police he’d smoked marijuana oil and taken prescription drugs.

Paula Cobb, whose daughter was killed near the University of Central Florida by a driver police believe was impaired by marijuana, said Florida will need a plan — and tougher penalties for those who smoke and get behind the wheel — if the ballot measure passes.

“We’ve got to better enable our law enforcement and give them better tools, better education, stronger regulations and guidance,” said Cobb, who lives in Columbia, South Carolina.

Her daughter, London Harrell, then a UCF senior, was struck by a hit-and-run driver when she was walking home in 2019 from The Knight’s Pub near campus. The driver, Yousuf Hasan, left Harrell dying in the street. Hasan, 30, failed a field sobriety test and a blood test detected the active ingredient in marijuana. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Cobb doesn’t oppose legalization, but she thinks states need to be prepared. In particular, she said educational campaigns are important to hammer home the dangers of marijuana and driving to the public.

The amendment needs at least 60% support from Florida voters in the Nov. 5 election to make recreational marijuana legal. Several polls have shown Amendment 3 clearing that threshold, though one from Florida Atlantic University showed it just short with 56% support.

Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational marijuana, and impaired driving has been an issue for policymakers. Minnesota launched a massive public education campaign to coincide with marijuana legalization warning about the dangers of smoking and driving and reiterating that driving stoned is a crime. Colorado includes representatives from the marijuana industry on its DUI task force.

The Florida Highway Patrol already has highlighted the issue of marijuana-impaired driving with a “Drive Baked, Get Busted” campaign. The agency rolled out billboards, posters and video ads in 2018 in the wake of the state’s vote to legalize medical marijuana.

‘Marijuana DUIs are difficult to detect’

Finding and then successfully prosecuting marijuana-impaired drivers isn’t easy, said Joel Leppard, an Orlando DUI lawyer.

“Marijuana DUIs are difficult to detect,” he said. “Officers are trained to spot drunk drivers, not stoned ones. The roadside exercises they use are designed for alcohol, not marijuana. And the experts who are trained to recognize drug impairment — there aren’t many of them, so they rarely get involved in these cases.”

While marijuana breathalyzers are in development, no reliable one is widely available. Florida and many other states have no standard limit for marijuana’s active ingredient in the blood, meaning there is no clear threshold for prosecution as there is with alcohol. Marijuana can also linger in the system for weeks, making it hard to establish if someone drove under the influence.

As marijuana becomes legal across the country, specialized officers known as drug-recognition experts are in short supply.

Law enforcement agencies in Florida have 342 drug-recognition experts, who are trained to spot drug-impaired drivers, according to the the International Association of Chiefs of Police. That’s about one drug-recognition expert per 66,000 Floridians.

The Florida Highway Patrol has 54, and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office has six drug-recognition experts. But all county officers receive generalized draining on driving under the influence, said Michelle Guido, a sheriff’s office spokeswoman.

Orange County Sheriff John Mina is among law enforcement leaders with concerns about legalization, issuing a statement that voters should consider the dangers of impaired driving. The Florida Sheriffs Association and the Florida Police Chiefs Association oppose Amendment 3.

Marijuana is already available through an unregulated street market, said Morgan Hill, a spokeswoman for Safe & Smart Florida, the group backing Amendment 3, when asked about the issue of pot-impaired driving.

“We expect adults to make responsible choices and believe no one should be driving under the influence of any substance,” she said. “We look forward to working with the Legislature to ensure there is continued education and common-sense regulation to support our law enforcement officers to identify and stop impaired driving of any kind.”

How dangerous is stoned driving?

Marijuana affects driving by slowing reaction times, impairing judgment of distance and decreasing coordination, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Guohua Li, a researcher at Columbia University, has been studying whether marijuana legalization results in more deadly crashes.

I It’s complicated to draw conclusions from crash statistics because traffic deaths in recent years have been affected by improved car-safety features and ride sharing services like Uber making it easier for intoxicated people to avoid driving.

And studying marijuana-related driving deaths can be tricky as some drivers could test positive for the drug, even if they smoked a week before the crash. In other cases, a driver might have used marijuana but also other drugs or alcohol, making it hard to tease out pot’s role in a crash.

Roadway deaths declined consistently for 30 years, but progress stalled over the past decade and went in the wrong direction in 2020 and 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Studies on marijuana legalization’s role in this trend delivered conflicting results, but Li said he thinks legalization has led to more traffic deaths.

“More scientifically rigorous methods have shown that legalization of recreational cannabis is associated with modest but statistically significant increase in fatal motor vehicle crashes,” he said.

Research has shown marijuana is even more dangerous if it is mixed with alcohol, which is becoming more common with legalization, Li added.

Legalization advocates, however, note a study that showed changes in traffic death rates for Washington and Colorado were not statistically different from those in similar states that did not legalize marijuana.

In 2023, marijuana was involved in 190 traffic deaths in Florida, according to Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. It’s possible those cases involved multiple drugs as the state does not provide statistics on crashes in which only marijuana was used.

People need to think of the consequences impaired driving could have on others, Cobb said.

Her daughter’s future looked bright, she said. An event management major at UCF, Harrell had just completed a summer internship in Amsterdam. Aside from her studies, she helped to raise money for sick children and cancer patients.

“He took her life,” Cobb said. “He took so much away from the world — the potential that she already realized and the greatness of the person that she was.”