Can you take your prescription drugs with a CDL?

Speaker 1
00;00;00;02 – 00;00;00;16
The law surrounding Commercial Driver’s Licenses and alcohol is much stricter than you may think. This is Christina Williams, with Just Criminal Law.
Speaker 2
00;00;11;19 – 00;00;13;24
And David Mann, legal storytelling specialist. All right. We’ve talked in other videos about this; the strict laws for DUI. What’s your angle today?
Speaker 1
00;00;21;28 – 00;00;23;00
Well, the laws. are much more strict when it comes to CDL holders. That is, it’s not okay to have any alcohol in your system while you’re operating your commercial motor vehicle. But you can get a DUI at just a .04 percent. And the legal limit for your regular license holder, of course, is .08. So, first of all, it’s illegal to have any alcohol in your system. You’ll get a ticket. Zero tolerance if you’re in your commercial vehicle. But you’ll get a DUI at .04 or greater.
Speaker 2
00;01;02;19 – 00;01;03;11
Okay. And a CDL, of course, is commercial driver’s license. So, .04. Does that apply if you are not in your commercial vehicle?
Speaker 1
00;01;10;23 – 00;01;11;21
That does not apply to CDL holders who are not in their commercial vehicle. That is, if you have a CDL and you’re in just a regular vehicle, not a commercial vehicle, then the legal limit is .08, as you might expect.
Speaker 2
00;01;29;05 – 00;01;29;16
All right. So you still can get a DUI, but the limit is higher in your own car. So when you are in your vehicle, is .04 the only thing that can get you some kind of violation when you’re driving either your car or the truck?
Speaker 1
00;01;46;28 – 00;01;47;12
No. So I have a case where I had a client who was the sole breadwinner. He had a very good job. An over-the-road truck driver, who made $100,000 or more a year for his family. And his wife stayed at home with their three children. You know, they were between the ages of 12 and seven and the entire family relied on his income — his wife’s personal car all of the kids’ expenses, all of the housing expenses, the house payment, etc. And so he unfortunately got into a situation where he was suspected of having alcohol in his system; not being over the legal limit of .04, but suspected of having alcohol in his system while he was in his truck.
Speaker 2
00;02;42;22 – 00;02;44;10
Alright. So suspected of having it. But what was it?
Speaker 1
00;02;46;01 – 00;02;47;20
Well, he did end up getting a ticket and he got put out of commission because the officer believed he had been consuming alcohol. Now, in this particular case, we were able to help this person; this man and family, who had a family of four, get out of the ticket, which would have caused him to lose his CDL. Now his particular situation was, he was diabetic and he had been driving all day. He needed to get some food in his system, and his body was producing ketones, which smelled like alcohol to the officer. And so the officer started questioning him about drinking. He had not been drinking and he even gave a false positive test on his breath test, because of the ketones in his breath. And so, he was given this ticket and he had to hire me.
Speaker 2
00;03;47;18 – 00;03;48;29
Okay. So he gets that. Now, you mentioned him losing his license over this. Does that mean, to my understanding this right, that even…do you just get a DUI and you immediately lose your CDL?
Speaker 1
00;03;57;28 – 00;03;59;22
Well, he didn’t get a DUI. So it’s a zero tolerance. As you may recall at the beginning of the video, if you have a CDL and you have any alcohol in your system, you can get a ticket for that. It’s zero tolerance. You can’t be in a commercial vehicle with any alcohol in your system. And so, that’s what was going on in this particular case. And we had to go to trial to prove his innocence.
Speaker 2
00;04;27;29 – 00;04;29;27
Which I imagine you did.
Speaker 1
00;04;29;27 – 00;04;30;17
We did. And this story had a happy ending. But a lot of times, people don’t realize how strict the laws are surrounding a CDL. So these professional drivers, if they get two alcohol-related tickets
over the course of their lifetime, whether they’re in a commercial vehicle or not, they face a lifetime disqualification of their CDL.
Speaker 2
00;05;01;15 – 00;05;02;28
Wow. That is high stakes, especially if you’re supporting a family on that job. So if someone knows that they really were arrested wrongly, or they suspect that they should probably call you to help them out, how would they do that?
Speaker 1
00;05;16;17 – 00;05;18;29
Right. Whether they’ve been arrested wrongly or not, we can always help make their situation better. And we will include a link in the description where they can call, text, or chat with a member of my team, any time, day or night. Here at Just Criminal Law, we know that you only get one shot at justice. So make yours count.