“I miss my daughter every single day. I will until the day I die,” Krystal Kazmark’s mother, Mary, tells Inside Edition.
With recreational marijuana now legal in 24 states, some people are getting behind the wheel after smoking the drug and posting videos of themselves driving. Like driving while impaired with alcohol, driving stoned can have potentially deadly consequences.
In California, a 21-year-old driver under the influence of marijuana killed three people after causing a car crash involving five cars. In Texas, a man is accused of killing a family of six. Court documents reportedly say he had marijuana in his system at the time of the wreck.
Every state has a legal limit on how much alcohol you can drink before driving, but that is not always the case with marijuana.
Mary and Craig Kazmark say their daughter Krystal would be alive today if not for her boyfriend, Josh Daugherty, who tested positive for marijuana the night he swerved into oncoming traffic on a California highway.
“I miss my daughter every single day. I will until the day I die,” Mary tells Inside Edition. “Just a wonderful person. She was very kind and loving and trusting.”
Daugherty crashed their car at 70 miles per hour.
“As a parent losing a child, it is a sentence for the rest of our lives because there is not a day that doesn’t go by that I don’t of my daughter,” Mary says. “If he would have just been a responsible person, this probably never would have happened and my daughter would be here today and I would be enjoying a life that I had dreamed of.”
On one occasion before the crash, Mary says she witnessed Daugherty smoking marijuana prior to driving.
“I know he liked to get high a lot. I saw him in his car, every time he’d jumped in the car he’d get stoned. [Mary] told him, ‘Don’t kill our daughter.’” Craig says.
“I saw him in the driveway by his car and he was lighting up a joint and I said, ‘You know, Josh, I’m really uncomfortable with you getting high and then getting in the car with my daughter and driving,’” Mary says.
Tests from the night of the car crash revealed the level of THC in Daugherty’s blood was three times the legal limit in other states. However, because California has no limit, Daugherty was charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter instead of murder.
This was not the first time a passenger was killed while Daugherty was behind the wheel. “He’s done it twice now; it didn’t seem to change anything the first time,” Craig says.
In 2009, Daugherty crashed his vehicle, killing 16-year-old Alexis Vega. As part of a plea deal, Daugherty agreed to never drive impaired and was warned if he did and someone died as a result, he could be charged with murder.
Daugherty was convicted of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter for the death of Kazmark. He served 200 days in jail.
“He spent time in jail the first time now he’s only spending a few months. This is the second person he’s killed, this isn’t right,” Craig says.
Sacramento County Deputy District Attorney Gregory Hayes tells Inside Edition the laws are not the only thing that needs to change.
“I think the overall impression is, honestly, that it’s okay to smoke and drive and it’s really not,” Hayes says. “Many of our jurors smoke marijuana and some of them smoke marijuana and come and do jury service and we are asking them to find somebody guilty of a crime that they perhaps they committed when they came down to do jury service.
Inside Edition tried to speak with Daugherty about his driving history. Inside Edition found him at a California DMV office in the renewal licensing line. “I don’t have any comment,” Daugherty tells Inside Edition.
“It’s so simple if they would just formulate some kind of regulation, put some accountability behind it, make so people have to stop and think, ‘Am I safe to drive,’” Mary says.
Some states, like Colorado, have a legal limit in place.
Inside Edition teamed up with the Colorado State Police and Department of Transportation who say they are prepared for any scenario when it comes to impaired driving. Three responsible volunteers put the authorities’ drug recognition training to the test.
The experiment began at the local legal dispensary Native Roots where they say their budtenders are trained to educate customers.
“We make sure that they have every piece of information that they need before they leave the store so they can make safe decisions, utilize rideshares,” Native Roots associate director of retail Chad Ricketts tells Inside Edition.
The volunteers told Inside Edition they felt high. They said they did not feel safe to get behind the wheel.
Inside Edition set up fake traffic stops to test trained officers of the Colorado State Police. The three volunteers struggled through the field sobriety test. They all failed the field sobriety test and physical evaluation.
A Colorado State Police officer tells Inside Edition if they had pulled over any of the three volunteers in the condition they were in during the test they would have been arrested in Colorado.
“Impairment is impairment regardless of the substance,” Sergeant Jason Sparks says. “A lot of people believe that they’re better drivers when they have ingested cannabis or cannabis products and that’s not the case.”
Sergeant Carrie Jackson says if you consume cannabis, you should not drive.
Authorities say without stricter legal limit driving laws nationwide, prosecution is difficult, and reckless behavior will likely continue.
A list of the marijuana-impaired driving laws in the states that have legalized marijuana can be found on the National Conference of State Legislatures website.
