Welcome back to closing bell on cheddar news. Everyone
as cannabis legalization takes hold in more states lawmakers nationwide
have been raising more concerns over so called drug driving
. Well their concerns appear to be justified as cannabis
was identified as an impairing substance in roughly 31% of
Colorado's D. U. I. Arrest in 2020
. In other news. Senior reporter Chloe Aiello has
more. Thanks Kristen. Well complicating matters is that
there still isn't reliable technology to test whether or not
someone is driving high. But a new company is
trying to help reefer launched last month to offer financial
protection to those facing cannabis D. U. I
. Charges including up to$8000 to pay for a
legal defense attorney. Joining me now to discuss is
Ceo and co founder Justin Con Justin, thank you
so much for joining us today. Can you tell
us more about what reefer is and how it actually
works? Yes ma'am. So reefer is a legal
defense plan for cannabis users. The basic premise is
that an individual pays a minimum of$15 a month
And in exchange for that if they are charged with
a cannabis d. U. I. then$15,000
becomes available to help cover all the legal and the
life disruption expenses associated with defending oneself as well as
navigating through the criminal justice system. Now I think
it almost goes without saying that no one wants to
bet on A D. U. I. Of
any kind. So why do you think it's important
for individuals to have something like refer to protect themselves
. That's a great question And the reason is is
because cannabis users have THC and cannabis cannabinoids in their
system regardless of the last time that they consume a
regular cannabis user which is someone who is defined as
consuming once a week would test positive for cannabinoids or
THC in their system regardless of the last time that
they consumed or regardless of whenever the impairment had faded
. So this means that any regular cannabis user is
at risk or their one mistake away from having an
interaction with a police officer that could lead them to
be suspected of being under the influence of cannabis.
And just as you said there is no test for
impairment. It really boils down to police officers perception
and if the police officer suspects or assumes that you
are under the influence, the only way to effectively
test for it is to cite and arrest an individual
tow and impound their car, take them to jail
, have them fingerprinted and ided and force them to
submit to a drug test either a blood or a
urine test depending on the state and depending on that
state, if there's any amount of THC you or
or cannabinoid metabolites in their system then that can be
enough to charge an individual with the cannabis D.
U. I. And all of those expenses are
incurred all before an individual has ever been charged with
a crime and that and it's very costly and that's
the reason why we created reefer is to make sure
that a regular cannabis user can protect themselves against the
risk associated with being a cannabis consumer. Now we
mentioned a couple of statistics on top about you know
the prevalence of cannabis in D. U. I
. Cases and of course we know that when states
are moving to legalize drug driving is a major concern
among lawmakers. So we have actually seen the prevalence
of cannabis in D. U. I. Arrests
increasing in states like Colorado. And you mentioned even
that there is no uniform way of detecting THC how
do you think given your expertise in the area state
should be tackling this issue? It's a it's a
great question. I think that there needs to be
better testing that is more accurate in the field that
can actually look beyond just metabolites or THC in the
body there are companies that you know in Canada they're
already doing mouth swabs which are supposedly able to tell
if an individual has consumed cannabis or cocaine within a
certain amount of time. That's definitely a step in
the right direction. There have been other companies that
are looking at trying to test for the cognitive impacts
of THC by using video game technology. I'm not
sure that I feel that that is particularly the right
direction but the fact that that the federal and the
state governments are looking for better ways to test for
impairment also means that they are training their police officers
to look for patterns and behaviors. And that means
that a regular cannabis consumer who may be consuming legally
lawfully and within the confines of, of how they
would normally consume. But because police officers are stepping
up their screening and they're looking for any sort of
reason to suspect that an individual could be under the
influence, what what that means for the regular cannabis
consumer is is that they are at a higher risk
every single time that they get behind the wheel.
And I think that there is no one bullet or
, or single solution that is going to solve this
problem. I think that it really is going to
have to come down to uh, situational determinants,
uh, from the police officer and from the surrounding
uh, facts of what happened to actually be determined
in a court of law. But you know,
as I said before getting to that point is very
costly. And so we want to make sure that
the individual has the means to cover those expenses because
you know, the average person in the United States
can't, can't afford a financial shock of greater two
of 1000 to 1000 or$2,000 per household. And
we want to make sure that we prevent an individual
or a household from being drug down into a terrible
situation if they are accused of a cannabis. Do
I Now Justin, thank you so much for joining
us. We're unfortunately out of time, but we
know Reefer has rolled out in. Missouri will be
watching closely to see where it goes next.