Drug Per Se Laws: A Review of their Use in States
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Summary
This report, commissioned by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and conducted by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, examines the implementation of drug *per se* laws in the United States. These laws criminalize driving with a measurable amount of specific drugs in one’s system, regardless of observable impairment. The study was motivated by the need to understand how these statutes are enforced and perceived by legal professionals, rather than to evaluate their impact on crash rates. The research focused on 15 states that had adopted such laws, with in-depth analysis conducted in six jurisdictions: Arizona, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Delaware, and Georgia. Two additional states, Colorado and West Virginia, were included as comparative cases lacking *per se* laws but possessing varying levels of Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) program activity. The methodology involved structured discussions with government officials, law enforcement officers, and prosecutors to gather qualitative data on the practical application of these laws. The researchers also attempted to analyze quantitative data regarding Driving Under the Influence of Drugs (DUID) arrests and conviction patterns. However, the study found that obtaining accurate, disaggregated data on DUID-specific arrests and convictions was problematic because these offenses are typically integrated into broader impaired-driving statutes. Consequently, the report could not provide a definitive impact evaluation on arrest volumes or conviction rates. Instead, the findings rely heavily on the perceptions and experiences of those charged with implementing the laws. The primary finding was a consensus among law enforcement officers and prosecutors that while drug *per se* laws did not necessarily make enforcement easier, they had a positive effect on prosecution. Prosecutors reported that the presence of a *per se* law provided a clearer legal framework for securing convictions compared to relying solely on impairment-based evidence. The report details the specific statutory sanctions, prohibited drugs, and effective dates for each of the 15 states, highlighting significant variations in how these laws are structured. For instance, some states have active DRE programs alongside *per se* laws, while others do not, affecting how cases are handled. The study also notes that the integration of DUID offenses into general impaired-driving statutes complicates data tracking, as citations often do not distinguish between drug, alcohol, or combined influence. The significance of this report lies in its recommendations for improving the administration and evaluation of drug *per se* laws. The authors recommend developing procedures where impaired-driving citations explicitly indicate whether drugs, alcohol, or both are involved. Furthermore, they advocate for adopting procedures to ensure this information is integrated into the computerized data systems of both law enforcement agencies and courts. These steps are deemed essential for generating the accurate data needed to assess the effectiveness of these laws in the future. The report serves as a foundational review of the legal landscape surrounding drugged driving, identifying systemic data collection issues that hinder evidence-based policy evaluation.
Key finding
Law enforcement officers and prosecutors perceived that adopting drug per se laws did not necessarily make enforcement easier but had a positive effect on prosecution.
Methodology
mixed_methods
Sample size: 15
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via bulk_ingest_rosap on 2026-05-23 (6 acquisition events logged).
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
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| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 19 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
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