Driving While Baked: Brookfield Teen Arrested for OWI-Drugs

Police officers are usually very measured in the language of their reports, and seldom use words like "bizarre" unless the behavior they witness really warrants it.

Apparently, this was one of those cases.

At 11:11 p.m. July 27, a Brookfield patrol officer noticed a car with no front license plate on Moorland Road approaching Blue Mound Road. As he watched, he reported, the driver "made a bizarre turn onto Blue Mound" from the far right of Moorland to the far right of Blue Mound, "crossing all lanes of traffic" in a less than gentle curve.

The 18-year-old driver from Brookfield was arrested on suspicion of driving while impaired by drugs after the officer pulled him over.

To begin with, the fellow and his car reeked of pot, his eyes were extremely bloodshot, and he had a fair-size baggie of weed in plain view on the front seat next to him – but he said he didn't have any. He'd been smoking earlier, though, he admitted.

Besides the stash of weed, officers found pipes and rolling papers in the center console of the car. He also had a couple of folding knives, and so counts of possession of drug paraphernalia and carrying a concealed weapon were added to his list.

Police rarely try to get prosecution of suspected marijuana-impaired drivers mainly because the tests and benchmarks don't exist to support evidence of impairment that do for alcohol. But in this young man's case, they made an exception.

Officers asked the teenager to take standardized field sobriety tests – the same ones used for suspected drunken drivers – and he failed rather notably, being barely able to balance upright.

The young man agreed to give an evidentiary blood sample, which will be tested at the State Crime Lab. The baggie of suspected marijuana proved positive for THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.

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