Impaired-driving bill needs work
Among the many items on the Montana Legislature’s crowded docket is a proposal to test people suspected of driving under the influence of marijuana.
House Bill 168 would establish a legal limit for the amount of THC that can legally be in a person’s blood while operating a motor vehicle.
While the impetus behind this legislation is laudable, the practical application is not reliable. Marijuana is unlike alcohol: The threshold for impairment can’t be reliably determined by marijuana blood levels.
“It is difficult to establish a relationship between a person’s THC blood or plasma concentration and performance impairing effects,” says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
That means the Legislature needs to be careful how it crafts its pot impairment measures.
Instead of basing a new law on indeterminate and possibly inaccurate variants on blood testing, the Legislature should look to measure the last time a person used marijuana. Mathematical models can determine the time of marijuana exposure with 95 percent confidence, so perhaps that should be the standard by which Montana measures driving offenses involving marijuana.
The key is keeping impaired drivers off Montana’s roads, no matter how they got that way.
Time to repeal gay sex law
Why there is any interest in keeping a law that has rarely if ever been enforced, and was moreover ruled unconstitutional by the Montana Supreme Court, is beyond us.
The law that criminalizes gay sex, on the books since statehood, is obsolete to say the least. A bill that would remove it from the state code deserves support because the old law is considered offensive by many, and at the very least the bill can be regarded as a kind of statutory housekeeping that should be applied to all antiquated and useless laws.
Republicans in the House defeated a similar measure in the last legislative session, but since then the state Republican Party has removed making homosexuality illegal from its platform.
Fighting the bill this time will only hurt Republicans in a state where voters have a strong libertarian streak and no interest in policing people in the bedroom.
Way to go, Kathy!
Congratulations to Kathy Rose of Kalispell, who has been selected to represent Montana at the Special Olympics World Winter Games in South Korea next week.
Rose competes in three snowshoe racing events — the 100 meter, 200 meter and 4-by-100-meter relay. The 55-year-old athlete told the Inter Lake that she is hoping for a gold medal. With her positive attitude and rigorous training regimen, we think she might just do it.
Good luck, Kathy!
Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily Inter Lake’s editorial board.