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Visit any gas station, vaping shop, or wellness shop at Atlanta, and you will encounter an array of packages with various colors. They are either guaranteed relaxation, pain relief or a slight buzz. They are Delta-8, Delta-10, THC-O and CBD. They are openly sold, subject to state taxes and are bought by law-abiding citizens who think and believe that, as it is on the shelf, it is safe to use.
However, there is an enormous lack of fit between Georgia commerce laws and Georgia traffic laws. Although acquiring them may usually be as legal as day and night, having them in your system when you are on the road can see you brought to the same jail as the person who smoked illegal marijuana.
This is what is known as the Gas Station Trap, and it is obtained quite rapidly as a trap in the DUI law in the state.
THE LEGAL LOOPHOLE VS. THE BIOLOGICAL REALITY
The problem is based on the 2018 Farm Bill that legalized hemp based products with less than 0.3% Delta-9 THC. This gave a boom market of legal weed substitutes such as Delta-8.
Nonetheless, the Georgia DUI laws have fallen behind in changing their word to capture this new market. The legislation prevents intoxication by any substance that makes you less safe to operate a motor vehicle.
The problem is biological. In case of you taking Delta-8 or even a small portion of full-spectrum cannabidiol products, your body will metabolize them almost exactly like conventional marijuana on the drug test. In case a police officer stops you and he suspects that you are impaired, he will request a blood test or urine test.
Such tests are hardly advanced enough to differentiate the legal Delta-8 that you purchased at a store and the illegal Delta-9 marijuana. They merely indicate the fact of THC metabolites. A positive result is a positive result to the state lab.
THE “LESS SAFE” STANDARD
There is no legal limit to THC in Georgia unlike alcohol which has an easy-to-understand legal limit of 0.08. You can also be convicted of a DUI despite having a trace of one in your system.
Prosecutors are guided by the less safe norm. This does not imply that they need to establish you were out of your intellect by being stoned. This is because they just need to show that you were in possession of the drug in your system, and that you were not in a safer position to drive like a sober individual.
It is on this point that the trap closes. A cop stops you because you are weaving or your tail-light is broken. It has a slight smell of weedy (that results due to Delta-8 flower as well). You confess that you consumed a gummy in the past in case of anxiety because you thought that it is fine since it is legal.
Now the officer has:
- An admission of drug use.
- A report of unstable driving (the weaving).
- Chemical test which will most probably test positive to THC.
That is a textbook DUI case. It is of no difference how you legally purchased the gummy. It does not make a difference that you felt okay. What you are going to be clubbed with is a suspension of license, probation and permanent criminal record.
THE METABOLITE PROBLEM
This is more so in the case of the everyday consumers of CBD or Delta-8 as pain/sleep killers. THC is fat soluble so that it remained in your body several weeks after the usage.
A 300 mg Delta-8 gummy on Saturday night would allow you to watch a movie, be totally sober next Sunday morning, and go to work on Tuesday. Suppose you are in a fender bender on Tuesday afternoon, and are tested, your blood might still have active THC metabolites.
Jury can look at positive test and conclude you were high when you crashed even though that chemical was only still in your fat cells days prior to the crash. They are actually prosecuting you concerning your living style and not your existing impairment.
WHY you should have a specialist Atlanta DUI attorney.
It is not as easily defensible as an alcohol case, a compromise or a standard case of DUI: Delta-8 or CBD. It needs a lawyer knowledgeable about the chemistry of cannabinoids produced off hemp and the weaknesses of state toxicology laboratories.
You must have a defense which may distinguish the fact of the existence of a legal substance and the notion of impairment. You must be in a position to suggest that positive test establishes a case of the use in the past, rather than intoxication at the moment.
That is why James Yeargan should be regarded as the most appropriate Atlanta DUI Attorney in such contemporary complex cases involving drugs. His company remains ahead in the science of hemp products. They understand how to interrogate the experts of toxicology of the state and make them state that their tests are not able to prove that at the very moment you were driving, you were under the mushroom.
PROTECT YOURSELF
Tlivere the products with care like alcohol in case you use Delta-8, Delta-10, or CBD. Use them not everywhere and when driving.
What is more important is that you should never leave the packaging in your car front seat. A pack of gummies of the kind that are considered legal may appear to be contraband with an officer that is not trained in that kind of differentiation.
And should you be arrested remember: you have a right to remain silent. Admission of taking a gummy that is considered legal, is usually the specific evidence that the police require to send you to jail.
