You can now buy and use recreational cannabis legally in New Jersey, but driving while impaired is of course still illegal.
This can result in users incurring legal costs for being charged with DUI, even if they are not impaired behind the wheel. There is no federal law defining a cannabis DUI.
Justin Kahn has started a company called reepher to help people with those costs.
“If an individual is accused of a cannabis DUI they’re going to be put through the legal process and incur significant financial expenses all before they ever even have their day in court,” he said.
“We provide financial assistance for hiring a lawyer and any expenses associated with that, any pretrial expenses, personal hardship expenses, if your car is towed and impounded, if you have to take time off from work,” he said.
He explained that the substances in marijuana that make people high stay in the body long after the effects have faded.
“A regular cannabis user and that’s defining as someone who uses cannabis once a day, once a day or more I should say,” he said, “is going to have elevated levels of THC and cannabinoids in their system.”
Kahn says this is of course true even for those who use medical marijuana.
reepher will begin operations in Missouri in a few weeks and hopes to be in New Jersey by year-end.