The Washington Traffic Safety Commission has asked the state legislature for yet another "fix" for legal pot.

The ACLU and others who championed (and wrote) the initiative assured the rest of us pot users wouldn't suddenly pop out their bongs, pipes and cigarettes behind the wheel.

But it hasn't happened that way.    The WTSC reports impaired drivers are causing enough of a problem they've asked the legislature to modify the laws governing pot use to make the penalties stiffer for driving.  According to an excellent piece by the Bellingham Herald:

"Many of the in-your-face tokers appear to be younger than 21. Though state law continues to forbid them from using marijuana, they’ve taken I-502 – and its minimal $27 open-use citations – as implicit permission to do it openly." (Bold lettering added for emphasis).

According to the most accurate updated information,  while about 1,000 drivers tested positive for pot in 2011 and2012 in Washington state, that number jumped to 745 for the first six months of 2013, according to the Traffic Safety Commission.

And we're not  the only ones suffering from stoned motorists, less than two weeks after the pot stores opened in Colorado, a stoned driver crashed into a Colorado State Patrol car, sending it into another.  Fortunately, neither officer was injured...some found that ironically funny,  but most people do not.

So until the legislature can revise and stiffen the pot driving laws and modify them, we will have to keep dodging Cheech and Chong behind the wheel.

 

 

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