The 21-year-old driver was whizzing down West
Dodge Road at high speed when he ran right up the back of a
motorcyclist, dumping the rider to the pavement and causing serious
injuries.
Though Omaha police officers found the driver was acting lethargically, a quick breath test showed he hadn’t been drinking.
It took subsequent tests to reveal the apparent cause of his obvious driving impairment: A drug screen revealed a cocktail of drugs, including marijuana, narcotic painkillers and other depressants.
That crash last summer in Omaha stands as a recent example of what highway safety advocates see as a growing danger in Nebraska, Iowa and across the nation: drugged driving.
So far this year 28 Nebraskans have been killed in crashes in which one of the drivers had drugs in his system suspected of impairing his driving.
That figure represents more than 12 percent of all Nebraska road fatalities to date. And it’s more than double the numbers from just a few years ago.
While part of the increase may be due to increased testing and awareness, highway safety officials say drugged driving has become a more urgent concern. A federal study released this year found that even as drinking and driving has been on a steep decline, the percentage of drivers testing positive for drugs is up.
“It’s clearly an emerging issue,” said Fred Zwonechek, longtime director of the Nebraska Office of Highway Safety.
Marijuana has been the most common drug found in Nebraska drivers and was tied to half the drug-related fatalities in Nebraska between 2011 and 2014.
Law enforcement officials say the legal recreational use of marijuana in neighboring Colorado in the past two years has made marijuana more available in Nebraska. Bought legally in Colorado, the drug is easily brought across state lines.
Driving impaired in Nebraska is illegal whether it’s because of alcohol or other drugs. The same law covers both.
But while law enforcement officials say they are committed to getting all impaired drivers off the roads, stopping drugged drivers creates some special challenges.
Unlike the .08 blood-alcohol limit in effect in all 50 states, there are no scientifically validated standards for the amount of drugs known to impair driving.
There is no quick roadside test available to detect drugs, as there is for alcohol. Impairment by some drugs also doesn’t show up as clearly in standard field sobriety tests. Often it is detectable only by specially trained officers.
Some drugs also clear the body long before they stop impairing the brain, making them sometimes difficult to detect even when blood or urine tests are administered right after arrest.
“The reality is drugged drivers escape detection,” said Peter Odom of the National District Attorneys Association. “We don’t know how big the problem is, but we know it’s big.’’
The concern for drugged driving goes beyond illegal drugs.
Prescribed drugs such as antidepressants or painkillers also can impair, especially in combination with other drugs or alcohol.
Nebraska convened a summit of law enforcement and public safety officials this month to raise awareness about drugged driving and discuss solutions.
One way Nebraska hopes to deal with drugged driving is by training more police officers to recognize the signs of drug impairment.
The state also wants to get the message out to the public: Just as with drunken driving, drugged driving is dangerous, and it could land you in big trouble.
“Impairment is impairment,” said Omaha Police Officer Matthew Kelly, a trained drug recognition expert who has been called in to investigate more than 200 suspected drugged drivers.
Through decades of concerted effort by law enforcement officials, highway safety advocates and lawmakers, the United States has greatly reduced the threat of drunken driving. Not only are drunken driving deaths down significantly, studies show Americans are far less likely today to get behind the wheel after drinking.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has periodically conducted studies in which it randomly stops drivers and tests them for alcohol and drugs. The latest such study, this year, found 8 percent of weekend nighttime drivers had alcohol in their systems, with just over 1 percent having alcohol levels over the .08 legal limit. That was less than one-fourth the rate seen in 1973.
But that same 2015 study found that nearly 13 percent of weekend nighttime drivers tested positive for THC, the psychoactive substance in marijuana. Throw in other illegal drugs and legal drugs that can impair driving and the percentage was more than 22 percent.
The presence of such drugs doesn’t mean they were at levels sufficient to cause impairment. Still, the prevalence of both THC and other drugs in the study was up 50 percent from a similar study in 2007.
“The rising prevalence of marijuana and other drugs is a challenge to everyone who is dedicated to saving lives and reducing crashes,” Mark Rosekind, administrator of the transportation safety agency, said of the study.
Nebraska only recently began statistically singling out drug-related fatalities. Those figures show the state was averaging about a dozen such deaths a year before spiking to 22 last year and to 28 as of last week, and that’s without all testing results in for 2015. In Iowa, drug-related crashes claimed 47 lives during 2014.
The Nebraska and Iowa statistics represent only suspected cases of drugged driving, because it’s not known if the levels were high enough to impair driving.
But Kelly, the Omaha police officer, said the impairment can often be deduced from the driver’s actions in such fatal crashes. He offered the example of a 2013 case he worked in which a 54-year-old Omaha man drove up North 30th Street at more than 105 mph, left the road, went airborne, hit a tree and died. A drug screen came up positive for meth.
“Given the behavior and the speed, that fit with a stimulant,” Kelly said.
Kelly and other safety officials said they think the state statistics may actually underestimate drug-related deaths because many drivers in fatal crashes are never tested for drugs. Once drivers test positive for alcohol after a fatal crash, they often aren’t subsequently tested for drugs. Frequently, Kelly said, “both drugs and alcohol are on board.”
Law enforcement officials are quick to cite a loosening of restrictions on marijuana use as a likely cause for an increase in drugged driving. Some 23 states have now legalized medical use of marijuana. And four, including Colorado, have legalized recreational use.
The marijuana being sold commercially in Colorado is also far more potent than weed sold illegally in the past. It’s also being sold in edible forms such as gummy treats and cookies, including a single cookie that contains six servings of the standard THC level established under Colorado law.
“Traffic safety got lost in all of this,’’ Glenn Davis, Colorado’s top highway safety official, said at the Nebraska drugged driving summit.
Adding to the challenge is that surveys have found most marijuana users don’t think the drug impairs their driving. Many actually believe it helps them drive better. That gives many users little reluctance to get behind the wheel stoned.
While the science on the impact that drugs have on driving is lacking, a University of Iowa study this year offered strong evidence that toking marijuana and driving can be dangerous.
It found that drivers with high levels of THC in their blood swerved out of their lanes, much as those over the .08 limit for alcohol do. Those with lower THC levels showed increased swerving consistent with impairment but generally stayed within their lanes. When alcohol and drugs were used in combination, driving skills deteriorated more than with either substance taken on its own.
“When you add these two together, it gets crazy,” said Mary Celeste, a retired Colorado judge.
Other studies have shown that marijuana use slows reaction time, hampers concentration, distorts perception of time and distance, and diminishes coordination — all skills needed to drive.
A study by Columbia University last year found that the number of fatally injured drivers who tested positive for marijuana had tripled nationally between 1999 and 2010.
While Colorado is only two years into its legalization of marijuana, the number of drivers involved in fatal crashes who tested positive for marijuana almost doubled in the first year. It’s believed that convictions for stoned driving also climbed.
But experts say getting convictions for drugged driving is no easy task, in Colorado or anywhere else.
With drunken drivers, the physical signs are often obvious, including the smell of alcohol on breath, slurred speech and poor motor coordination. There is a standardized breath test that gives officers probable cause to arrest. And there’s a .08 legal threshold that judges, juries and the general public well understand.
With drugs, there is often no smell, and many of the impairments are mental, not physical, and thus harder to detect. There is no breath test. And clear standards on how much drugs impair driving are elusive.
Due to such shortcomings, getting a conviction for drugged driving in Nebraska usually depends on court testimony from officers on the impairment they observed, either while the driver was behind the wheel or during field sobriety tests.
The limitations of that were made clear earlier this year when a Lincoln judge ruled that prosecutors could not prove that a dump truck driver in a deadly 2012 crash was impaired just because he had methamphetamine in his system. No officer testified to observing the impairment. The driver’s attorney argued that witness accounts of his weaving before the crash could have been caused by road conditions or the wind.
“These can be exceedingly difficult cases to prosecute,’’ said Odom, of the National District Attorneys Association.
To address the problem, 18 states, including Iowa and South Dakota, have established zero-tolerance laws, making it a crime to drive with any level of THC or other drugs. Six states, including Colorado, have attempted to establish THC levels at which people are presumed impaired — similar to the .08 level for alcohol — but with little scientific basis to back them up.
So what is the solution to drugged driving?
Nebraska is looking to step up the training of law enforcement officers. Statewide, just over 100 officers are certified as drug recognition experts, or DREs, called in when a driver is suspected of being impaired by drugs. The arduous training program for DREs takes weeks to complete.
But during the past year, the state began encouraging other front-line officers to complete a less-extensive federal training called ARIDE — Advanced Roadside Impaired Driving Enforcement — that will better help them identify the signs of drug impairment during traffic stops.
It’s possible the Legislature will consider having Nebraska join the states that have established zero-tolerance laws or impairment standards for various drugs.
Odom called for the utilization of scientific “green labs” — controlled experiments in which subjects ingest marijuana to help scientists learn what levels of THC cause impairment. Similar “wet labs” were used to establish the .08 limit on alcohol.
It’s hoped scientists will also one day be able to come up with a roadside saliva test for drugs similar to the breath test for alcohol.
Safety officials in Nebraska are also hoping to step up public education. When Colorado legalized marijuana, it also launched a series of humorous video ads targeting young males with the message: “Drive high, get a DUI.” Others say there also needs to be more public awareness on how prescribed drugs can impair driving.
“We need the public to recognize these are serious issues,” Zwonechek said.
Ultimately, Odom said, stopping drugged driving will likely take the same kind of campaign the nation launched against drunken driving in the 1980s.
“We were able to turn the corner on drunk driving because it became highly stigmatized,” Odom said. “We have not put that kind of time and money yet into drugged driving. But we will.”
Though Omaha police officers found the driver was acting lethargically, a quick breath test showed he hadn’t been drinking.
It took subsequent tests to reveal the apparent cause of his obvious driving impairment: A drug screen revealed a cocktail of drugs, including marijuana, narcotic painkillers and other depressants.
That crash last summer in Omaha stands as a recent example of what highway safety advocates see as a growing danger in Nebraska, Iowa and across the nation: drugged driving.
So far this year 28 Nebraskans have been killed in crashes in which one of the drivers had drugs in his system suspected of impairing his driving.
That figure represents more than 12 percent of all Nebraska road fatalities to date. And it’s more than double the numbers from just a few years ago.
While part of the increase may be due to increased testing and awareness, highway safety officials say drugged driving has become a more urgent concern. A federal study released this year found that even as drinking and driving has been on a steep decline, the percentage of drivers testing positive for drugs is up.
“It’s clearly an emerging issue,” said Fred Zwonechek, longtime director of the Nebraska Office of Highway Safety.
Marijuana has been the most common drug found in Nebraska drivers and was tied to half the drug-related fatalities in Nebraska between 2011 and 2014.
Law enforcement officials say the legal recreational use of marijuana in neighboring Colorado in the past two years has made marijuana more available in Nebraska. Bought legally in Colorado, the drug is easily brought across state lines.
Driving impaired in Nebraska is illegal whether it’s because of alcohol or other drugs. The same law covers both.
But while law enforcement officials say they are committed to getting all impaired drivers off the roads, stopping drugged drivers creates some special challenges.
Unlike the .08 blood-alcohol limit in effect in all 50 states, there are no scientifically validated standards for the amount of drugs known to impair driving.
There is no quick roadside test available to detect drugs, as there is for alcohol. Impairment by some drugs also doesn’t show up as clearly in standard field sobriety tests. Often it is detectable only by specially trained officers.
Some drugs also clear the body long before they stop impairing the brain, making them sometimes difficult to detect even when blood or urine tests are administered right after arrest.
“The reality is drugged drivers escape detection,” said Peter Odom of the National District Attorneys Association. “We don’t know how big the problem is, but we know it’s big.’’
The concern for drugged driving goes beyond illegal drugs.
Prescribed drugs such as antidepressants or painkillers also can impair, especially in combination with other drugs or alcohol.
Nebraska convened a summit of law enforcement and public safety officials this month to raise awareness about drugged driving and discuss solutions.
One way Nebraska hopes to deal with drugged driving is by training more police officers to recognize the signs of drug impairment.
The state also wants to get the message out to the public: Just as with drunken driving, drugged driving is dangerous, and it could land you in big trouble.
“Impairment is impairment,” said Omaha Police Officer Matthew Kelly, a trained drug recognition expert who has been called in to investigate more than 200 suspected drugged drivers.
Through decades of concerted effort by law enforcement officials, highway safety advocates and lawmakers, the United States has greatly reduced the threat of drunken driving. Not only are drunken driving deaths down significantly, studies show Americans are far less likely today to get behind the wheel after drinking.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has periodically conducted studies in which it randomly stops drivers and tests them for alcohol and drugs. The latest such study, this year, found 8 percent of weekend nighttime drivers had alcohol in their systems, with just over 1 percent having alcohol levels over the .08 legal limit. That was less than one-fourth the rate seen in 1973.
But that same 2015 study found that nearly 13 percent of weekend nighttime drivers tested positive for THC, the psychoactive substance in marijuana. Throw in other illegal drugs and legal drugs that can impair driving and the percentage was more than 22 percent.
The presence of such drugs doesn’t mean they were at levels sufficient to cause impairment. Still, the prevalence of both THC and other drugs in the study was up 50 percent from a similar study in 2007.
“The rising prevalence of marijuana and other drugs is a challenge to everyone who is dedicated to saving lives and reducing crashes,” Mark Rosekind, administrator of the transportation safety agency, said of the study.
Nebraska only recently began statistically singling out drug-related fatalities. Those figures show the state was averaging about a dozen such deaths a year before spiking to 22 last year and to 28 as of last week, and that’s without all testing results in for 2015. In Iowa, drug-related crashes claimed 47 lives during 2014.
The Nebraska and Iowa statistics represent only suspected cases of drugged driving, because it’s not known if the levels were high enough to impair driving.
But Kelly, the Omaha police officer, said the impairment can often be deduced from the driver’s actions in such fatal crashes. He offered the example of a 2013 case he worked in which a 54-year-old Omaha man drove up North 30th Street at more than 105 mph, left the road, went airborne, hit a tree and died. A drug screen came up positive for meth.
“Given the behavior and the speed, that fit with a stimulant,” Kelly said.
Kelly and other safety officials said they think the state statistics may actually underestimate drug-related deaths because many drivers in fatal crashes are never tested for drugs. Once drivers test positive for alcohol after a fatal crash, they often aren’t subsequently tested for drugs. Frequently, Kelly said, “both drugs and alcohol are on board.”
Law enforcement officials are quick to cite a loosening of restrictions on marijuana use as a likely cause for an increase in drugged driving. Some 23 states have now legalized medical use of marijuana. And four, including Colorado, have legalized recreational use.
The marijuana being sold commercially in Colorado is also far more potent than weed sold illegally in the past. It’s also being sold in edible forms such as gummy treats and cookies, including a single cookie that contains six servings of the standard THC level established under Colorado law.
“Traffic safety got lost in all of this,’’ Glenn Davis, Colorado’s top highway safety official, said at the Nebraska drugged driving summit.
Adding to the challenge is that surveys have found most marijuana users don’t think the drug impairs their driving. Many actually believe it helps them drive better. That gives many users little reluctance to get behind the wheel stoned.
While the science on the impact that drugs have on driving is lacking, a University of Iowa study this year offered strong evidence that toking marijuana and driving can be dangerous.
It found that drivers with high levels of THC in their blood swerved out of their lanes, much as those over the .08 limit for alcohol do. Those with lower THC levels showed increased swerving consistent with impairment but generally stayed within their lanes. When alcohol and drugs were used in combination, driving skills deteriorated more than with either substance taken on its own.
“When you add these two together, it gets crazy,” said Mary Celeste, a retired Colorado judge.
Other studies have shown that marijuana use slows reaction time, hampers concentration, distorts perception of time and distance, and diminishes coordination — all skills needed to drive.
A study by Columbia University last year found that the number of fatally injured drivers who tested positive for marijuana had tripled nationally between 1999 and 2010.
While Colorado is only two years into its legalization of marijuana, the number of drivers involved in fatal crashes who tested positive for marijuana almost doubled in the first year. It’s believed that convictions for stoned driving also climbed.
But experts say getting convictions for drugged driving is no easy task, in Colorado or anywhere else.
With drunken drivers, the physical signs are often obvious, including the smell of alcohol on breath, slurred speech and poor motor coordination. There is a standardized breath test that gives officers probable cause to arrest. And there’s a .08 legal threshold that judges, juries and the general public well understand.
With drugs, there is often no smell, and many of the impairments are mental, not physical, and thus harder to detect. There is no breath test. And clear standards on how much drugs impair driving are elusive.
Due to such shortcomings, getting a conviction for drugged driving in Nebraska usually depends on court testimony from officers on the impairment they observed, either while the driver was behind the wheel or during field sobriety tests.
The limitations of that were made clear earlier this year when a Lincoln judge ruled that prosecutors could not prove that a dump truck driver in a deadly 2012 crash was impaired just because he had methamphetamine in his system. No officer testified to observing the impairment. The driver’s attorney argued that witness accounts of his weaving before the crash could have been caused by road conditions or the wind.
“These can be exceedingly difficult cases to prosecute,’’ said Odom, of the National District Attorneys Association.
To address the problem, 18 states, including Iowa and South Dakota, have established zero-tolerance laws, making it a crime to drive with any level of THC or other drugs. Six states, including Colorado, have attempted to establish THC levels at which people are presumed impaired — similar to the .08 level for alcohol — but with little scientific basis to back them up.
So what is the solution to drugged driving?
Nebraska is looking to step up the training of law enforcement officers. Statewide, just over 100 officers are certified as drug recognition experts, or DREs, called in when a driver is suspected of being impaired by drugs. The arduous training program for DREs takes weeks to complete.
But during the past year, the state began encouraging other front-line officers to complete a less-extensive federal training called ARIDE — Advanced Roadside Impaired Driving Enforcement — that will better help them identify the signs of drug impairment during traffic stops.
It’s possible the Legislature will consider having Nebraska join the states that have established zero-tolerance laws or impairment standards for various drugs.
Odom called for the utilization of scientific “green labs” — controlled experiments in which subjects ingest marijuana to help scientists learn what levels of THC cause impairment. Similar “wet labs” were used to establish the .08 limit on alcohol.
It’s hoped scientists will also one day be able to come up with a roadside saliva test for drugs similar to the breath test for alcohol.
Safety officials in Nebraska are also hoping to step up public education. When Colorado legalized marijuana, it also launched a series of humorous video ads targeting young males with the message: “Drive high, get a DUI.” Others say there also needs to be more public awareness on how prescribed drugs can impair driving.
“We need the public to recognize these are serious issues,” Zwonechek said.
Ultimately, Odom said, stopping drugged driving will likely take the same kind of campaign the nation launched against drunken driving in the 1980s.
“We were able to turn the corner on drunk driving because it became highly stigmatized,” Odom said. “We have not put that kind of time and money yet into drugged driving. But we will.”
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