Legal marijuana new issue in local OVI blitz

SOUTHINGTON TOWNSHIP, Ohio (WKBN) – “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over.” That’s the message from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Beginning Friday through September 2, the Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over campaign shifts into high gear, with local and state officials teaming up to find and arrest impaired drivers before they crash or cause serious injury.

“Everybody behind me has seen this. Over and over again, we show up at a crash involving a drunk driver and it’s not so much that driver, it’s who did you affect — the families, the vehicle they hit, the people who are senselessly injured. It takes a toll on you after a time,” said Trumbull County Sherriff Paul Monroe.

OVI crashes continue to be an issue in Trumbull County. In 2023, there were 20 crashes involving a fatality, killing 24 people. Seventy-five percent of those crashes involved an impaired driver.

“We see impairment in different ways. Not only with just alcohol but mixing alcohol with other drugs — methamphetamine has grown in our area,” Monroe said.

Troopers with the Ohio State Highway Patrol arrested 295 drivers for OVI in 2022 and another 263 in 2023, but law enforcement says it’s not a problem you can simply solve by making arrests.

“We could arrest someone and it might affect them or a few other people. But if we can get the message out before a problem occurs, that’s the best-case scenario. I’d rather the problem get resolved beforehand and us not have to make any arrests,’ said Lt. Dan Morrison, with the Ohio State Highway Patrol.

With Ohio legalizing the sale of recreational marijuana, it’s another element of the campaign that law enforcement is honing in on.

“More people are using marijuana. If you do use marijuana and you feel any effects of that, you’re not to drive. Just because it’s legal to possess it doesn’t mean you can drive after you smoke it,” Morrison said.

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