DUI Drugs Arizona – What you need to know

In Arizona you can be pulled over and arrested for DUI Drugs to the slightest impairment.

DUI Drugs Arizona – What you need to know

In this video Burges McCowan explains what a DUI Drugs charge is and what you are facing if charged.
Start Transcription:
This is Burges McCowan. In this video, I’m going to talk about DUI drugs.

In Arizona, the statute is ARS 1381 subsection A3. It’s treated the same as a regular alcohol DUI. The difference is it’s based on drugs in your system.

There’s a couple different ways they can attack this. One is illegal drugs. If you have any illegal drug in your system, they’re going to consider that a DUI regardless of whether you’re actually impaired by that.

However, I have a whole separate video on this with regards to marijuana DUI, there’s recent case law that changes that. Now, they have to actually show impairment, not just the presence of the drug. So definitely check out that video.

For all the other illegal drugs, if they show that in your system, that’s a DUI.

The other way that you can get a DUI drugs, is prescription drugs. Even if you have a valid prescription, they can still charge you with DUI if they can prove that you’re impaired by the prescription drug. Now you do have some more defenses available to you if you have a prescription for that drug, but it doesn’t mean they can’t charge you for that.

That’s the definition for DUI drugs.

In term of the punishment, it’s treated largely the same as regular DUI for alcohol. The difference is your suspension is going to be longer, a year suspension for a DUI drug first offense.

You can still be charged with the alcohol DUI so if you have a case where you have alcohol and drugs, they’re going to charge you for both of those separately.

They can also still charge you with felony DUI aggravated DUI if you have prior DUIs or if you are driving on a suspended license. They still have all those available to them in addition to the fact that they now have the drug on you.

They can’t charge you with possession of drugs simply for having it in your bloodstream, but they can still get you with the DUI and if you have any prior DUIs, they can ramp it up to a felony DUI.

If you’ve been charged with a DUI involving drugs, give me a call. I can help and I do free consultations.
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