Ask Deandra – Can I Get a DWI in Texas if I’m Only on Prescription Medication?

Hello everyone. This is Deandra Grant, and this is the Ask Deandra video series, which corresponds with my Ask Deandra blog series, where I answer the most commonly searched questions on the internet about DWI in Texas.

Today’s question is about whether you can be charged with DWI on prescription medication. And the answer is yes, you can. The statute in Texas is not having the normal use of your mental or physical faculties due to the introduction of alcohol or any other substance, and obviously driving a car in a public place. That’s basically the definition for DWI.

Let’s dive into that a little bit. Everyone knows if you’re 0.08 or greater, then that’s evidence of DWI that can be used against you. But what if you don’t have any alcohol in your system? Can you still be charged? Well, there are three ways to prove intoxication under our statute. One is the one you know: having an alcohol concentration of 0.08 or greater at the time you’re driving a car. That’s one definition. But there are two more that you may not be familiar with. Not having the normal use of your mental faculties due to the introduction of a substance, be it alcohol or something else. And not having the normal use of your physical faculties due to the introduction of a substance, be it alcohol or something else.

So let’s say the something else is a prescription medication that your doctor gave you. We call these cases DUID cases, driving under the influence of drugs. That’s the terminology we use for it. And it is exactly as it sounds. The police think that you are not normal mentally or physically because of some medication that you took, and there may not be alcohol involved at all. This is a very common way to get arrested for DWI that I think most people don’t realize. They hear someone got arrested for DWI and they think, oh, it was alcohol. They don’t realize, no, it could be Ambien. It could be Xanax. Give me any medication that your doctor gives you that causes you to not have the normal use of your mental or physical faculties, and then you’re out driving.

Let’s talk about whether the state can prove that or not. These are actually tougher cases for the state to prove than you would think, unless you’re just very off on video. If you don’t look really impaired on video, it’s actually kind of difficult to convince a jury that because you took medication that you’ve been taking for a long time, that the doctor wants you to take, that treats a certain symptomology that you have, you can’t drive a car safely.

A lot of people are chronic pain patients. If you’re a chronic pain patient, then you are living on a pain protocol, typically, as long as you’re not abusing the medication, that a doctor’s prescribed just so you can get through the day. I’ve had clients that have chronic back issues, that have been injured at work and never fully recovered, that have had surgeries that never fully healed, and they have to function in society. So they are on medications, and their body has become accustomed to those medications so that they can move on about their life on a daily basis without being too impaired to drive a car. Whereas if I took the same medications, when I do not have those issues, then it would probably impair me a great deal and I should not be driving a car.

You have other issues when it comes to this, such as tolerance. Tolerance is: I’ve been taking this medicine for a very long time, my body has become accustomed to it, and so it doesn’t have the intoxicating effects on me that it did when I first started taking it.

So when you get a blood test result that’s got a drug amount in it, there is so much that goes into interpreting that data and trying to determine, looking at the video, looking at how you were driving, looking at that number, looking at how long you’ve been taking that medicine and what you take it for. You may have been perfectly fine to drive, and the police could have been quick to judge when you told them what meds you take. So just because you get charged with DWI, or driving under the influence of drugs, DUID, does not mean you’re going to get convicted of it. The state actually usually has an uphill battle on these cases, trying to convince a jury that you’re intoxicated on the video, that you were intoxicated while you were driving.

I hope this helps. It’s actually a very complicated topic, and it’s one I lecture on pretty frequently. I’ve got an entire chapter of my book, the Texas DWI Manual, dedicated to this topic. So if you have any further questions and you want to know more, click on the link to the blog that I wrote about this, and it will go into more detail. Hope you found this helpful, and we’ll see you next time.