Judges Hearing More Cases Of People Driving Using Drugs

Criminal judges are hearing more cases of people arrested for driving under the influence that involve people who took prescription drugs and then drove.
Tennessee is one of the nation’s leading states when it comes to the amount of prescription pills prescribed.
Law enforcement officials see the result of the trend in more people operating vehicles under the influence of prescription drugs.
Sometimes the drugs are legally prescribed, other times they are not.
Prescription drugs present a unique challenge for the judicial system because there is not a state set legal limit. For alcohol the legal limit is .08.
Blood tests are required to determine what type of drugs and the amount of drugs in a person’s system when they are arrested.
Currently, the TBI crime lab has a backlog generated by changes in Tennessee’s implied consent laws.
In January, Tennessee enacted no refusal laws that allow law enforcement to obtain a blood sample from a suspected drunk driver without a warrant if the person has a previous DUI conviction or has a child under the age of 16 years old in the vehicle.
The change increased blood sample submissions to the TBI Crime Lab by 50%.
However, the agency was not provided with additional funding to hire lab technicians.
The turn-around time on a blood alcohol content test went from two weeks to two to eight weeks.
The turn-around time for a drug screening went from eight weeks to up to 30 weeks.
The TBI said it is planning to hire more technicians, though it may be months before they are fully trained and working in the crime lab.