Hawaii PD conduct state’s first-ever cannabis impaired driving Green Lab

Marijuana plants for the adult recreational market are are seen in a greenhouse at Hepworth Farms in Milton, N.Y., July 15, 2022. New York has issued the first 36 cannabis dispensary licenses on Monday, Nov. 21, 2022 taking a monumental step in establishing a legal  — and lucrative — marketplace for recreational marijuana. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

HAWAII (KHON2) — Hawaii island police conducted the state’s first-ever cannabis impaired driving “Green Lab” to enhance road safety.

As the state has been debating whether to legalize cannabis or not over the last few years, one Hawaii island Sergeant noticed that states that legalized marijuana, also saw an increase in traffic crashes.

“I knew the writing on the wall was coming to Hawaii eventually, that they were going to try and do the same thing, so instead of being reactive, I wanted to take a proactive approach,” explained Sergeant Thomas Koyanagi, West Hawaii traffic enforcement unit commander.

After attending multiple conferences on the mainland, Sgt. Koyanagi decided to train officers with advanced roadside impairment detection education here in Hawaii.

In May, he ran the state’s first ever ‘Green Lab,’ which is similar to how police departments run workshops to train officers on detecting drunk drivers.

He had 25 officers and medicinal cannabis volunteers; each volunteer was a licensed medical cannabis patient and legally permitted to consume their own cannabis product in verified dosages off-site. Officers transported the volunteers during the training event.

“Since that’s probably the large majority of the people, if they do legalize it for adult-use here, that we’re going to come in contact with,” Sgt. Koyanagi added. “So, we wanted to assure the medicinal cannabis community that they weren’t going to get arrested because they were cannabis patients, and that we’re looking for impairment and we wanted to show them what impairment looks like and what we’re looking for.”

During the test, he saw correlating levels of consumption and impairment. 

“A lot [of the volunteers] in the second round still wouldn’t have gotten arrested, because their tolerance levels were so high that it didn’t affect them in the divided attention tests,” he explained. “Which through the drug recognition experts for a loop because they thought for sure that they would have been much higher because their THC levels went higher.”

Because it’s medicinal, officers knew the percentage of THC the volunteers were taking. After letting the participants smoke or have edibles, they would test their cognitive functions, coordination, motor skills, and laughter too.

Sgt. Koyanagi said in some states like Colorado, drivers with five nanograms of THC in their blood levels could be prosecuted for DUI.

“Almost everybody [volunteers] had registered over 25 nanograms of active THC in their system, but many of them would have not gotten arrested,” he explained due to their high tolerance.

Hawaii island leads the state in traffic fatalities so far this year with 20 deaths compared to 10 this time last year.

Sgt. Koyanagi said having officers trained and able to recognize the different kinds of impairment adds to their toolbelt.

“Right now, we’re looking for answers to see if we can combat the amount of people dying on our islands needlessly when we don’t have to,” he said. “We want to have everybody educated as far as being able to detect impaired driving, that’s the ultimate goal.”