Jameson Stone Law defends controlled substance DUI charges across Central Pennsylvania, and Ethan Stone leads the DUI work. Most of these charges do not require the Commonwealth to prove you were impaired at the wheel, and they are sentenced in the same band as the highest alcohol tier.
Two Different Charges
Section 3802(d) of the Vehicle Code contains two routes that work very differently. The first is strict liability. Any amount of a Schedule I substance in your blood is enough, along with any Schedule II or Schedule III substance that was not prescribed to you, and the metabolites of either. Nothing about how you were driving has to be established at all.
The second route does require impairment, and it reaches any drug regardless of who prescribed it. That is the distinction people miss. A valid prescription answers the first route and does nothing for the second, so being lawfully medicated and being lawfully able to drive are two separate questions.
Metabolites
Metabolites are by-products, and they outlast the effect of the substance that produced them by a long way. The reporting threshold in Pennsylvania sits at one nanogram per millilitre, and an inactive metabolite counts the same as the active compound. For a regular user, that window can run to weeks.
Which means a charge can rest entirely on something taken days earlier that had no bearing on your driving. It is worth knowing that some district attorneys decline these cases where the toxicology shows no active compound at all, and others do not. That varies by county, and it is one of the first things worth establishing.
The Penalty
A first conviction under the controlled substance provisions carries a mandatory minimum of 72 hours in jail, a fine between $1,000 and $5,000, twelve months without a licence, and alcohol highway safety school. That is the same band as a driver at 0.16 or above.
Set that against a first offence at the lowest alcohol tier, which carries six months of probation, a $300 fine and no suspension at all. Two drivers, both first offenders, and one of them loses a year of driving and a mandatory jail term. Which provision the charge sits under is doing more work than anything about the driving.
What We Handle
Charges resting on traces rather than impairment, and whether any active THC was present at all.
Where a valid prescription answers the charge, and where it does not answer it at all.
Whether a warrant existed, whether the consent was genuine, and whether the sample was lawfully obtained.
The officer's observations, any roadside drug evaluation, and how much of the report rests on inference.
Our Process
01
What the laboratory actually found, whether it was active or inactive, and how the number compares against the reporting threshold.
The warrant, the consent, the chain of custody, and whether the blood draw itself would survive a motion to suppress.
Which provision the charge actually rests on, and whether the Commonwealth can prove impairment in the cases that require it.
Two things make these cases different from an alcohol case. There is no breath test for drugs, so a blood sample is involved and how it was obtained matters. And a positive result proves detection rather than impairment, which are not the same thing and are not always both required.
This is the most actively contested question in Pennsylvania DUI law, and the answer has been moving. The position under the strict liability provision has been that a card provides no exemption, on the basis that medical marijuana remains a Schedule I substance for these purposes. Legislation to change that has been through Harrisburg more than once, federal rescheduling may affect the analysis, and some district attorneys already decline these cases where no active compound was found. What that means in practice is that where the law sits on the date you were stopped is a question worth asking rather than assuming, in either direction. Call and we will tell you where it currently stands.
Because the two provisions do different work. A valid prescription takes you outside the strict liability route for a Schedule II or Schedule III substance, which is a real defence and worth establishing early. It does nothing at all about the impairment route, which applies to any drug however lawfully obtained. Being told by a doctor that you could drive is not a defence either, though it is worth raising. The practical question is which provision you have actually been charged under, and that is on the paperwork.
It depends entirely on which provision the charge sits under. Where the Commonwealth is relying on strict liability, impairment is not an element and arguing you were fine does not reach the charge. Where the charge rests on impairment, it becomes the whole case, and the evidence for it is usually an officer’s observations and a roadside evaluation rather than a number. Those are considerably more open to challenge than a laboratory result. Establishing which position you are in is the first useful step.
The toxicology report is the case, and it says less than the charge assumes. Whether the compound was active, how the blood was taken, and which provision you were charged under all sit in the file rather than in the summary you were handed. Ethan Stone leads the firm’s DUI work, and the first conversation costs nothing.