Defending DUI For Prescription Medication

DUI (driving under the influence) is a term that causes most people to think about someone who drives a vehicle after drinking alcohol. The same is true for the term DWI (drinking while intoxicated). When you hear these words you probably think about someone who is drunk driving.

You may not have thought or realized that these terms DUI, DWI can also refer to driving under the influence of either prescription or illegal or drugs. In fact, they can and do refer to a driver who is impaired (under the influence of) by prescription or illegal drugs, as well as alcohol.

The person who drives a motor vehicle after using psychoactive drugs is an issue of ongoing concern to authorities. It is an issue of ongoing concern to law enforcement officers, forensic toxicologists, attorneys, physicians and traffic safety professionals in every state in the United States. Some of the things these professionals are concerned about are the documentation and assessment of the impairment displayed by the driver, ways to identify the drug impaired driver on the road, the availability of appropriate chemical tests and the interpretation of the subsequent results.

Someone may ask, “Do medications or drugs really impair a driver? Is prescription medication as potentially dangerous as drunk driving?”

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