Local law enforcement alarmed by recent rise in drugged driving crashes, arrests

I first met Tammy Duffy about a year and a half ago. I sat on her front lawn as she described the heartbreak of losing a child to a drunk and drugged driver.

"It's hell on earth," she shared, through tears.

It's been seven years since Kaitlyn Duffy, 18, was killed as she drove her Honda CR-V along Indian River Road near the Pungo section of Virginia Beach. She was headed back to Chesapeake after spending the day at Sandbridge Beach when a man who was driving drunk, high, and on a suspended license, crashed a furniture delivery truck into her SUV. Duffy, along with her new puppy, died. A passenger, friend Sabrina Mundorff, survived with lifelong injuries.

I interviewed Duffy for a story about a surge in fatal crashes in Virginia, many of them involving drugs and alcohol. I was curious to follow through to see what's changed since then. When I looked at the numbers, they showed a troubling trend still unfolding.

News 3 has followed through on a case in Virginia Beach, involving impaired driving. In April , a jury convicted a 26-year-old man of involuntary manslaughter and driving under the influence. Prosecutors say Nathan Poole drove after using marijuana, eventually crashing into two pedestrians in the Town Center area.

Rosa Blanco and her cousin Concepcion Blanco were hit as they were leaving a restaurant after celebrating Rosa’s birthday, prosecutors added. Rosa died at the scene, and while Concepcion survived, she was hospitalized for five weeks and has severe, permanent injuries, prosecutors said.

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Attorney Diane Toscano represented the driver in that case. She is concerned about the lack of uniform standards when it comes to detecting drug use.

"There's no test as to how much marijuana in somebody's system is too much," Toscano says. "So, a person's THC level doesn't necessarily correlate with them being impaired when operating a vehicle."

Virginia Beach police say field sobriety tests indicated Poole was impaired, noting he smelled like "burnt marijuana". A toxicology report showed the level of THC in Poole's blood indicated "recent use".

"The police are training more to figure out if someone's under the influence of marijuana, what are those indicators, but again, it's not a clear test," Toscano says.

Virginia Beach Commonwealth's Attorney Colin Stolle noted while there is no forensic standard for THC impairment, the case is proof, he said, it's unsafe to drive after using marijuana.

Statistics show there are more of those drivers sharing the roads with us. I requested numbers from Virginia Beach Police for a better picture of just what we're dealing with. I found that, from 2022 to 2023, drug-related crashes in Virginia Beach were up 15%. Arrests in those cases rose by 43%. Crashes involving alcohol were down from year to year.

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As police work to arrest impaired drivers, people like Tammy Duffy work to keep them from ever getting behind the wheel.

"Nobody can actually drive impaired safely, without potentially harming someone or killing them," Duffy says. "They're very graphic, horrible deaths, and the injuries, they are lifetime injuries for those who do survive," she adds.

Since our first interview, Tammy's become a national ambassador for Mothers Against Drunk Driving. She recently lobbied lawmakers in Washington, D.C., to speed up enforcement of the HALT Act. It requires automakers to equip new cars with smart technology that passively detects and stops impaired driving.

"Hopefully in my lifetime, I will see this happen," Duffy adds.

The Department of Transportation has until November to set final standards for this technology. The act gives automakers until 2027 to roll out the tech in new vehicles.

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