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THE DRUGGED DRIVING CONUNDRUM: States are struggling with how to prevent people from getting stoned and then getting behind the wheel.
Though there are conflicting studies over whether the legalization of marijuana in states leads to more traffic accidents, one of the big themes during a House subcommittee hearing on cannabis Wednesday was that lawmakers wanted to strike the right balance between relaxing rules on marijuana without also introducing a slew of other public health problems.
One of those problems is the possibility of impaired driving. It’s a tough one to handle because police officers don’t have a similar test for marijuana-impaired driving as they do for alcohol. Plus, there isn’t a consistent amount of THC, the high-inducing chemical in marijuana, for every product that’s out there, whether joints, vapes, edibles, or even when taken medicinally.
“It has a very long halflife and it accumulates in the fatty tissues in our body,” Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said of marijuana during the hearing. Someone can get high and then drive hours later after they’re no longer intoxicated, but high levels of THC will still show up during a drug test. In fact, THC will show up in a urine test a month after someone has smoked weed.
That means that the tests we have now can tell that someone had marijuana within the past month, but it’s indistinguishable from whether they even smoked during the past day. The tests can’t actually tell whether a person is currently under the influence of marijuana, which makes it harder for police officers to enforce rules against driving high. In contrast, alcohol blood levels indicate how much someone has had to drink and then levels decline as that person gets sober.
Some companies are working on finding better ways to detect marijuana. Startup Hound Labs in California, for example, said that their breathalyzers under development are able to show whether someone used marijuana in the past three hours.
But for now, law enforcement officers are left with a lot of imprecision. All states criminalize driving while under the influence of drugs, but to different extents. “Per se” laws, for example, specify that people must have a certain level of THC in their blood, and other laws focus on making sure the driver is actually impaired at that time by reporting poor driving or slurred speech.
Good morning and welcome to the Washington Examiner’s Daily on Healthcare! This newsletter is written by senior healthcare reporter Kimberly Leonard (@LeonardKL) and healthcare reporter Cassidy Morrison (@CassMorrison94). You can reach us with tips, calendar items, or suggestions at [email protected]. If someone forwarded you this email and you’d like to receive it regularly, you can subscribe here.
HHS PROPOSES REPEAL OF OBAMA-ERA REFERRAL RULE: The Department of Health and Human Services posted a proposed rule Thursday that would no longer obligate religious organizations who get grants from the department to refer people elsewhere for services they won’t provide. “By compelling religious organizations, but not secular organizations, to post special notices and make referrals, the alternative-provider requirements placed burdens unequally on religious organizations and cast unwarranted suspicion on them. By singling out religious organizations for unique regulatory burdens, the requirements infringed the organizations’ religious liberty rights,” HHS wrote.
CMS REJECTS WYOMING MEDICAID WAIVER: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services denied a waiver application that would have allowed all air Wyoming ambulance travel — done by helicopter — to be paid for by Medicaid, regardless of whether the people airlifted had private health insurance. The proposal was meant to limit surprise medical bills, which are common following air ambulance rides, but CMS said the plan wasn’t budget-neutral and that “using the Medicaid administrative structure to provide services to other individuals in the state as a mechanism to avoid the application of federal aviation law is a clear departure from the core, historical mission of the Medicaid program to provide health coverage to the Medicaid-eligible population.” Air ambulance providers and hospitals in the state opposed the waiver.
Meanwhile, federal efforts on air ambulances are underway: The first advisory committee meeting for Health and Human Services and Transportation officials took place on Wednesday and is continuing into Thursday. The group will be recommending ways to improve the disclosure of charges and fees from air ambulances
AHIP WANTS SCOTUS TO TAKE UP OBAMACARE: America’s Health Insurance Plans, which represents insurers, wants the Supreme Court to take up Obamacare, but didn’t take a position on timing. In a brief filed Wednesday, AHIP urged the justices to uphold the healthcare law and wrote that a delay on hearing the case would deny them “much needed clarity.”
SURGEON GENERAL IS THE LATEST FED TO OBJECT TO SUPERVISED INJECTION SITES: Surgeon General Jerome Adams said at a Cato Institute event Wednesday that needle exchanges were a better answer to solving the opioid epidemic and reducing infectious diseases than the use of supervised injection sites: “I’m not bashing any particular person or group … but the truth is, I have looked at the data, and I have seen little to no data suggesting they are overall more effective than expanding syringe services programs.”
BLOOMBERG VOWS TO OUTLAW E-CIGARETTES: Michael Bloomberg has vowed to ban flavored e-cigarettes and to lower the amount of nicotine in tobacco products so they’ll be less addictive. “Today one in four high school students are addicted to vaping and it’s a brand new thing. It’s so bad,” he said on “The View” Wednesday. Bloomberg criticized President Trump’s approach to vaping. Trump initially proposed stricter regulations on the industry, but then pulled back by allowing menthol and tobacco flavors to stay on the market. Bloomberg said: “The Trump administration, bowing to pressure from the tobacco industry as well as political pressure, has broken its promise to remove all flavored e-cigarettes from the market.”
FLORIDA SENATE BILL WOULD REQUIRE PARENTAL CONSENT FOR ABORTIONS: Kelli Stargel, a Republican, introduced a Senate bill that would require minors seeking an abortion to get parental consent first, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Florida law already requires minors to notify parents that they will undergo an abortion. Stargel’s bill has support from Gov. Ron DeSantis, who said in his State of the State address: “I hope that the Legislature will send me this session the parental consent bill that last year was passed by the House but not by the Senate.” Last year, the bill passed in the House by a vote of 69-44, largely along party lines, but stalled in the more moderate Senate. Stargel herself was a teen mom and said the bill is meant to “strengthen” families.
DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSWOMAN ACKNOWLEDGES ALCOHOLISM AFTER ‘SERIOUS’ FALL: Arizona Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick, 69, acknowledged that her alcohol dependence was the cause of a recent fall, which has prompted her to seek treatment. Kirkpatrick has served in Congress three times – first in 2009, then for two terms from 2013 to 2017. She lost in 2016 to Sen. John McCain but recently won her seat in 2018. She said her office will be “fully operational” while she is in treatment. “My positions on all recorded votes will be submitted to the Congressional Record and made publicly available,” she said.
The Rundown
The Wall Street Journal Juul scales back overseas expansion
Stat ‘Donation after cardiac death’: New heart transplant method being tested for the first time in the U.S.
The New York Times Overwhelmed by medical bills, and finding help on TikTok
ABC News Progress stalled on closing racial gap in health insurance since Trump took office
Kaiser Health News What the 2020s have in store for aging Boomers
Calendar
WEDNESDAY | Jan. 15
Jan. 13-16. San Francisco. JPMorgan Chase & Co. 38th Annual Healthcare Conference. Details.
10 a.m. 2123 Rayburn. Energy and Commerce’s Health Subcommittee hearing on “Cannabis Policies for the New Decade.” Tune in.
Noon. Cato Institute event on “Needle Exchange Programs: Benefits and Challenges,” with Surgeon General Jerome Adams. Details.
THURSDAY | Jan. 16
8 a.m.-4 p.m. The Spy Museum. 700 L’Enfant Plaza SW. Council for Affordable Health Coverage event on “The Price of Good Health.” Details.
