Consumption areas, like bars to smoke weed, are a bad idea for NJ (Opinion)

This makes me disgusted. I was all for the legalization of recreational marijuana in the Garden State. But the consumption areas attached as separate rooms to dispensaries coming this year are a terrible idea.

On Tuesday the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission published the operational rules for these weed lounges and it's a joke. One (of many) rules is employees have the right to decide how much cannabis is consumed and will be trained to spot over-consumption.

Yeah. Good luck with that.

The entire problem with this is patrons can be driving home. And the entire problem with that is law enforcement still has no perfected, reliable standard for determining when a marijuana smoker is too high to drive safely.

Unlike a BAC where New Jersey has a quantifiable .08 definition of where legally drunk begins, any test for THC in a person's system can be extremely misleading. THC will remain in the body for days or weeks after the smoker is no longer high. There's no numerical standard of how much marijuana is too much marijuana. Yet they're going to allow employees of consumption areas to arbitrarily decide?

A recently released State Police report analyzing 2021's fatal collisions shows drunk and high drivers now cause more fatal crashes than distracted driving.

This from an NJ.com article on the report:

For the first time, the analysis separated the number of crashes where drivers, pedestrians or cyclists tested positive for cannabis. It showed 91 drivers, 13 passengers, 23 pedestrians and two cyclists tested positive for cannabis after fatal crashes.

Driving high is dangerous. It's not cute. It's not funny. It's dangerous. It's deadly. And it's hard to determine. It is completely irresponsible that the law is including consumption lounges.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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