Medical pot cardholders smoke to help police better understand impairment

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. (WJLA) — Recreational marijuana becomes legal in Maryland on July 1, and the Montgomery County Police Department wants to make sure they’re ready when it comes. So they're working with medical marijuana users to better understand how pot impairs drivers.

For Montgomery County resident Cat Szafran, smoking marijuana with a group of strangers under the presence of law enforcement is admittedly at bit surreal.

"It’s only a little bizarre," she said.

While there was a lot of laughing on this night, this event is designed to save lives. Szafran and her fellow medical marijuana card holders are participating in a critical partnership with Montgomery County police.

Unless they are fully educated, they don’t know what to do when they run into somebody who is high," Szafran added.

Everyone here smokes for medical reasons. Szafran, who wears a shirt that says, "Cannabis is Medicine," says cannabis eases the burden of her anxiety.

“It’s made a night and day difference," she insisted.

At this event, held at the Montgomery County Public Safety Training Academy, participants smoked for 30 minutes then gave a saliva sample to a third-party lab. After that, police conducted field sobriety tests. The goal of this training exercise was to compare the saliva results with the impressions training officers observed while conducting field sobriety tests, thereby allowing them to make more educated decisions on the job.

"Ultimately our goal is to have our roads as safe as possible," said Lt. John O'Brien.

For Lt. O’Brien, this cannabis lab is a unique and potentially vital form a community policing.

There’s a benefit for law enforcement to get to see real time impairment. There’s also a benefit to the cannabis community to get exposure to law enforcement but also to take a step away and say, you know what, maybe I can’t operate a motor vehicle safely with the amount I typically use," concluded Lt. O'Brien.

Law enforcement leaders also hope to work with state lawmakers in determining the best way to measure cannabis impairment.

For alcohol it’s .08 BAC. Presently, there's no national standard for cannabis impairment.