Chicago DUI lawyer says the government thinks you aren't necessarily impaired just because you have drugs in your system

Earlier this week, I posted on the increase in drugs while driving versus alcohol while driving. Now, it appears even National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) isn't convinced that drug detection equates impaired driving.

NHTSA

Most psychoative drugs are chemically complex molecules, whose absorption, action, and elimination from the body are difficult to predict, and considerable differences exist between individuals with regard to the rates with which these processes occur. Alcohol, in comparision, is more predictable.

Factors that make similar prediction difficult for most other psychoative drugs include:

• Poor correlation between the effects on psychomatic, behavioral, and/or executive functions and blood or plasma levels (peak psychomotor, behavioral, and executive function effects do not necessarily correspond to peak blood levels; detectable blood levels may persist beyond the impairing effects or the impairing effects may be measurable when the drug cannot be detected in the blood)

• Acute versus chronic administration (it is not unusual to observe much larger impairment during initial administration of drugs than is observed when the drug is administered over a long period of time)

The result of these factors is that, at the current time, specific drug concentration levels cannot be reliably equated with effects on driver performance.

Can you believe that the government is actually admitting that driving with some drugs in your system does not, necessarily, mean the driver is impaired?