Court Opinion

ID: 9524251
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:51:01.765184+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:09:11.271501
License: Public Domain

CHEZEM, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The majority states that a positive urine test for marijuana is insufficient to prove that a defendant had marijuana in his blood. I disagree. It is a medical fact that any chemical, whether it enters the body through inhalation, ingestion, dermal application, or any other method, is first absorbed into the blood stream, then metabolized (usually by the liver or kidneys), and then exereted in the feees or urine. Louise J. Casarett & John Doull, Casarett and Doull's Toxicology: The Basic Science of Poisons 38 (Curtis D. Klaasen, Ph.D. et al. eds, 3d ed. 1986).
The majority relies on Moore v. State (1994), Ind.App., 645 N.E.2d 6. There, the defendant was given a urine test after the arresting officer found marijuana in the car; he tested positive. However, the First District of this Court reversed Moore's conviction holding that there was insufficient evidence that Moore had marijuana in his blood. I do not agree with that holding for two reasons. First, Moore admitted to the arresting officer that he had been smoking marijuana. The pharmacological effects of marijuana begin within minutes of inhalation. Goodman and Gilman's The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics 552 (Alfred Goodman Gilman et al. eds, 8th ed. 1990). Therefore, even without the urine test, Moore's admis*530sion that he had been smoking marijuana was sufficient to prove that he had marijuana in his blood. Second, the Court in Moore stated that because no blood test was administered and because Moore testified that he had smoked marijuana three days earlier, it was possible that he no longer had marijuana in his blood, yet he still had marijuana detectable in his urine. This is contrary to medical science. After use, marijuana and its metabolites persist in the plasma for several days and up to several weeks; during this time it is detectable in the urine. Id. Thus, even if the only evidence was that Moore had smoked marijuana three days earlier, the detection of marijuana in his urine was sufficient to prove the presence of marijuana in his blood.
I believe that Indiana courts have an obligation to take judicial notice of commonly known medical facts. The trial court here implicitly did such.
Estes tested positive for marijuana in his urine. Therefore, marijuana was present in his blood. The evidence was sufficient to support the conviction, and I would affirm the trial court.