Hey all,

Interesting that this was brought up, because just the other night, 2 friends of mine were involved in a car accident, and the driver was arrested for being under the influence of Klonopin.

He's been prescribed this medication for years, and swears that he had taken it several hours before he even got in the car, but when the accident occurred, he was given the standard field sobriety test, a breathalyzer test which came out negative for the presence of alcohol, but he was being belligerent with the officers at the scene.

He was P.O.'d at the fact that they were treating him like a suspected drunk driver because he doesn't drink, so he kept yelling at the officers at the scene "I'm not drunk!"

They asked him if he was on any medications, to which he replied that he has a legal prescription for Klonopin, and bam, the cuffs went on and he spent the night in jail. He didn't have any on him at the time of the accident, and as I said earlier, he swears that the dose he had taken earlier that day had already worn off, and that he doesn't get drowsy from taking them anyway since he's built a tolerance for them, but apparently, if you're under the influence of any medication that could potentially cause drowsy side effects and they find it present in your system at the time of arrest, it's practically a given that you're going to be hauled into jail for it.

Now, since I take anxiety meds and pain meds for my back, but would never even think about trying to drive after taking them, I'm wondering now if I was ever involved in an accident and for any reason they did a blood test on me and it showed up in my system from say the night before, if I'd be treated the same way as my friend was. Legal script or not, it seems like they're going to treat you like you're a DUI case.

I'm not sure if this varies by the state you live in, but I heard of some kind of law that was recently passed that says even if you're as straight as a pin at the time of the accident, if they find any kind of prescription or illicit drugs in your system after a car accident, you could wind up spending the night in jail and getting charged with a DUI. And for the record, I never carry any of my meds on me when I drive, prescription or not, because of this.

Is it just me, or does anyone else notice that the police seem to "crack down" on things like this during an election year for about 2 or 3 months prior to election day? Just wondering...

Eeyore