by Emily Hollwedel
The curves along Route 97 usually feel effortless, almost like flying, especially with the windows down and the music low. Tonight feels different.
The trees blur a little more than they should, and Mickey can’t quite tell if he’s holding a straight line or drifting just enough to matter. He left a party early, telling himself he was fine to drive, just a light buzz, nothing serious.
But now it’s harder to focus on everything at once: the speed, the lane, the car ahead, and the next turn coming up too quickly. A glance at the speedometer sends a jolt of panic: He’s going 10 mph under the speed limit. His heart races. For the first time, he realizes how easy it is to feel OK behind the wheel and still not be in control.
In 2023, Maryland legalized the recreational use of cannabis products for adults 21 and older. Legalization turned cannabis into a regulated part of everyday life, bringing with it tax revenue, criminal justice reforms and new conversations around public health.
This legislation also produced a variety of concerns, one of which is Marylanders getting behind the wheel while under the influence of cannabis. Anti-drugged driving campaigns are seen on billboards, signs and pamphlets, urging drivers to avoid driving under the influence. You might have seen the Instagram campaign from the Carroll County Health Department encouraging residents to drive safely or the billboards dotting the roadways around the county that warn “Drugged Driving=Impaired Driving.”
Carroll County Sheriff’s Office Col. Justin Baker has been working in law enforcement for more than 26 years. Baker says that it is difficult to determine if and how legalization has impacted the incidence of drugged driving.
“I think we obviously have impaired drivers on the road,” he says. “But it’s much more difficult to detect cannabis than it is alcohol.”
Baker explains that alcohol is measurable by number, the blood alcohol content (BAC), which police can determine roadside with a simple breath test. The same cannot be said for determining cannabis use. While blood tests can identify the presence of cannabis in the blood, he says no current technologies allow officers to measure the amount of THC or CBD in the body. As a result, it’s hard to calculate the number of drugged driving incidents on Carroll County’s roads.
According to Zero Deaths Maryland, a subset of the Highway Safety Office that provides resources and statistics, as of early May, the state had seen 40 impairment-related fatal crashes so far this year.
Baker details traffic information on Carroll County roads. In 2025, the Carroll County Sheriff’s office recorded 12,500 traffic stops, during which police arrested 188 individuals for impaired driving. The data did not include how the drivers were impaired. Six of the 1,400 collisions in 2025 were fatal.
“I can tell you from being in law enforcement for 26-plus years, most of our collisions that are fatal involve one of three things: speed, safety belts — or lack thereof — and some type of impairment, which is alcohol, drugs, or a combination of both,” Baker says
Brooke Fox, director of Prevention Services at the Carroll County Health Department, oversees substance misuse prevention initiatives. She notes that while there is no direct data to support an increase in drugged driving, the Cannabis Attitudes and Behavior Survey released last year might provide some insight into people’s mindset about it.
“We did receive some data from that, and the results show that, overall, individuals across all age groups identified driving under the influence of cannabis as a very risky behavior, so that suggests people do acknowledge that it is risky,” Fox says.
As cannabis use becomes more common, law enforcement has expanded how it identifies impaired drivers using a tiered approach that builds from basic to highly specialized training.
At the first level, officers rely on Standardized Field Sobriety Tests (SFSTs), the familiar roadside exercises such as the walk-and-turn and one-leg stand used to detect signs of impairment. The second tier, known as Advanced Roadside Impaired Driving Enforcement (ARIDE), provides additional training to help officers recognize impairment from alcohol, drugs or a combination.
At the highest level, Drug Recognition Experts (DREs) undergo extensive certification to evaluate suspected drug impairment in more complex cases, using a detailed, multi-step assessment to determine whether a driver is under the influence.
Maryland has 180 DREs, including one in Carroll County. Carroll’s DRE oversees various programs, including “green labs.” Green labs are instructional safe spaces where people can safely use cannabis, and investigators, deputies, and officers learn from and study their behaviors and mannerisms for training.
Driving under the influence of cannabis leads to issues with balance, memory, and judgment on the road. The Maryland Cannabis Administration (MCA) emphasizes that “reaction time, awareness of time and distance, and lack of concentration” are deeply affected by cannabis use.
Cannabis also has wide-ranging effects on individuals for a variety of reasons, making identification on the road a careful task. An informational video created by the Maryland State Police features Trooper First Class Samuel Jackson, a Breath Test supervisor, explaining that different drugs affect people’s bodies differently.
As a result, police must look for individuals driving either too fast or too slow. Officers must then use roadside tactics to assess the subject. If an individual under suspicion refuses any assessment — such as a Breathalyzer or blood test — the driver risks a driver’s license suspension for at least 270 days.
It is illegal for a driver to be under the influence of an impairing substance while operating a vehicle. While the level of impairment may affect the severity of the violation, cannabis is treated with the same concern as drugs that are illegal or considered more dangerous. It is also illegal for passengers to consume cannabis in a vehicle.
Local law enforcement and health experts want to send the clear message that driving while under the influence of drugs, including cannabis, is very much illegal.
“I think it’s just good for Carroll County to be aware that using cannabis, specifically while driving, by the driver or even a passenger, and driving under the influence of cannabis is against the law. This is not part of the legalization,” Fox states. “No matter what you may have heard, cannabis is a drug with impairing effects, and it doesn’t make you a super laser-focused driver. Driving even a little high is never as safe as it is to drive sober.”
