Fatal drugged driving crashes up on Long Island - Newsday
A driver who prosecutors allege was high on marijuana struck 19-year-old Eryk McPherson in October while he biked home from his job stocking shelves in Central Islip.
Paramedics rushed the Longwood High School honors graduate to the hospital, where he later died, another fatality underscoring a growing problem of Long Island motorists who cause injuries while under the influence of drugs.
"I saw him take his very first breath and his very last breath," his mother, Erika Woods, 47, said of her son, who loved anime and took care of his autistic younger brother. "I really wouldn’t wish that on anybody."
Crashes like these are at the center of a simmering political debate in Albany over laws that in some cases are more lenient toward drugged driving than drunken driving.
While alcohol is the leading cause of impaired crashes nationally, drugged driving — involving cannabis and all other drugs, from fentanyl to amphetamines — is a significant and increasing threat, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. State data shows around a quarter of Long Island's fatal crashes had a "drug-involved driver" in 2023, a number that has trended upward over the previous decade.
Prosecutors and road safety advocates say part of the problem is a loophole in the current law. In cases without serious injuries, drivers on any drug besides alcohol can avoid criminal charges if they refuse to take a blood, urine or other chemical test. That's different than the law around drunken driving and can prevent the state from intervening before someone is injured, they say.
The law "lets people who are creating a very serious safety situation with their impairment off the hook," said Robert Sinclair, senior public affairs manager at AAA Northeast.
Meanwhile, statewide data shows the proportion of drivers who refused to take a test after being pulled over by trained officers doubled over five years, to around a fifth in 2022.
A bill in Albany would address the loophole by redefining the drugs it’s illegal to drive on — from cannabis and the state’s list of controlled substances to any substance that impairs "physical or mental abilities."
This broader definition would allow law enforcement to get around a legal requirement to name the drug a driver was on and would also ban driving on novel designer drugs that aren’t on the controlled substances list, proponents say.
The law’s backers — the governor and 78 legislators from both parties, including 15 co-sponsors from Long Island — say the new definition of "drugs" would be similar to the vast majority of other states and is recommended by the National Transportation Safety Board.
But opponents argue the broad definition could lead to prosecution for benign substances or even mental health conditions and could be applied unevenly, pointing to a history of discrimination in policing.
"I read that [new definition] to potentially cover having a morning cup of coffee, having an energy drink, having over-the-counter or prescribed medication," said Michael Sisitzky, assistant policy director at the New York Civil Liberties Union. "Pretty much anything could be swept within that definition."
The proposal was part of budget negotiations but didn’t make it into the final package, passed in early May. Now, it’s being considered as a stand-alone bill as the legislature approaches the end of its annual session in mid-June.
For her part, Woods hopes it passes because it could deter drivers from driving while high. She believes many factors make Long Island roads unsafe — from a lack of sidewalks in her neighborhood to misplaced priorities on who police pull over. And while she supported the state’s legalization of marijuana in 2021, she thinks too many drivers are driving high — on weed as well as other drugs — with too few consequences.
"If you get caught driving while you're high, you're going to get in trouble — that's what's supposed to happen. That's not what's happening now," she said.
The proportion of fatal crashes with a "drug-involved driver" trended upward between 2014 and 2023, according to state data analyzed by the Institute for Traffic Safety Management and Research in Albany. Long Island's proportion has consistently been higher than the rest of the state, rising from 17% in 2014 to 30% in 2020, before falling to 24% in 2023.
The data reflects crashes where drugs other than alcohol were found in a driver’s drug test, police report or ticket record.
In some recent years, there were actually more fatal crashes with a drugged driverthan those with a "drinking driver," a category that can overlap. However, a spokesperson for the Albany-based institute cautioned against comparing the statistics because of uncertainties in the data. The drug numbers areaffected by how often tests are performed, as well as the fact that some drugs — like THC, the active ingredient in cannabis — remain at detectable levels in the body even after their influence has waned. However, other drugs can metabolize out of a driver’s system quickly, before a drug test is performed, according to the NTSB.
Still, cannabis, opioid and other drug use may be part of the reason why, after decades of decline, traffic fatalities have been trending upward nationally since 2014, according to Guohua Li, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University.
"Definitely, alcohol is still the elephant in the room," he told Newsday. "But cannabis and other drugs have added to the landscape and made things much worse in recent years."
Addiction specialists said the increase in drugged driving crashes is likely linked to the prevalent use of various substances, including more potent marijuana that increases the risk of becoming dependent on it. Although a state-sponsored study found no increase in cannabis use by drivers after its legalization in 2021, it did find an increase in opiate and stimulant use.
People are continuing to battle mental health and substance abuse issues exacerbated during the pandemic that could be reflected on our roads, according to addiction experts like Rockville Centre-based Dr. Stuart Wasser.
"Is there increased drugged driving versus increased drug use? It's probably proportional. As more people are using drugs, more and more people are driving while under the influence," said Wasser, who treats people for addiction disorders.
Laws against drugged driving were created after laws against drunken driving, but their enforcement is challenged by the unique ways drugs interact with the human body.
In 1910, New York became the first state to pass a law against driving in an "intoxicated condition," which courts soon interpreted to mean "imbibing enough liquor" to render one incapable of devoting "prudent" and "reasonable" attention to the road.
Initially, convictions depended on officers’ reports of drivers’ conduct and demeanor, but in 1941, the law was amended to also allow for the admission of blood alcohol content tests as evidence, according to a historical analysis by the appellate division court. New York eventually adopted laws making blood alcohol content sufficient evidence on its own for a criminal conviction. At first, these so-called "per se" laws set the limit at 0.15%, then 0.10%, then 0.08% by 2003.
The state passed its first drugged driving law, the basis for the current statute, in 1966, defining drugs as those on the state list of controlled substances. The list has been updated over time and today includes hundreds of illegal drugs and their metabolites — derivatives produced as the body breaks them down. To bring charges, prosecutors must name the drug a driver was on in order to show it is on the list, which often requires a chemical test.
Unlike with alcohol, New York has no per se impairment threshold for drugs — meaning that an amount of drugs in the system by itself isn’t sufficient for a charge. Prosecutors, experts from the NTSB and marijuana legalization groups like NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marajuana Laws, have all said that’s a good thing, since most drugs show only a weak correlation between concentration in bodily fluids and the degree of impairment. Alcohol is actually unusual in this regard, with a clear connection between BAC and inebriation.
Instead of a per se limit, drugged driving convictions require, in addition to naming the drug, officers’ observations of impairment. Usually this involves field sobriety tests, when an officer examines a driver’s eye movements or asks them to perform physical tasks like the walk-and-turn.
Police claim that such psychophysical tests and exams are reliable, but Dan Russo, a defender with Suffolk County’s 18B program, which provides free legal services to those who can’t afford lawyers, said many officers aren’t well trained.
"It’s really, in my opinion, junk science," he said of field sobriety tests for drugs. "But juries will give weight to that, even though I don't think there's much to it."
Maureen McCormick, an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County who specializes in prosecuting impaired drivers, said psychological tests and physical exams are the best option available for policing drugged driving, given the limitations of determining impairment based on drug concentration in the body. Training has improved and body-worn camera footage can provide a supplement, she added.
"A body-worn camera operates first to make sure that the police are behaving the way they ought to be, and aren't targeting people. ... It's also a great tool, so that instead of having to rely on the cops’ words, the judge and the jury can see for themselves what it is that they were seeing," McCormick said.
Proponents of tightening the drugged driving law argue novel drugs — like new forms of ecstasy, synthetic marijuanas and xylazine (a veterinary tranquilizer also known as "tranq") — often show up on the street before they are added to the health department’s controlled substances list.
Prosecutors have tried but failed to get around the list. In a 2004 case, the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office charged Vincent Litto, 19, under the original drunken driving statute for intoxication even though he was high on "dust-off" (a compressed gas that is not a controlled substance) when he crashed into another car, killing a teenager. On appeal, the court upheld 12 other charges against Litto but threw out an intoxication charge, ruling the law applies only to alcohol. As a result, a charge for criminally negligent homicide was also dropped.
The requirement a drug be on the list "really handcuffs police," said Sinclair, of AAA.
McCormick, who helped prosecute Litto before joining the Suffolk District Attorney's Office, said the existing law leaves open another, perhaps more important loophole.
If a driver pulled over for suspected drunken driving refuses to take a breath, urine or blood test, police can fall back on the original drunken driving law that preceded BAC testing technology, bringing charges based on demeanor and conduct alone. But if the same driver were instead suspected of driving high on any other drug, the police wouldn’t be able to bring charges since they would not be able to name the drug through a chemical test, according to McCormick. In New York, police can get a warrant compelling a blood test in a suspected drugged driving case only if the driver has seriously injured or killed someone.
At least some people who drive high may see test refusal as an attractive option. Chemical testing refusals among drivers evaluated by trained officers doubled from 11% of cases in 2018 to 22% in 2022, according to ITSMR. It’s unclear how many of those drivers were actually impaired, but Suffolk District Attorney Ray Tierney said he’d seen four cases in recent months where allegedly impaired drivers walked because prosecutors were unable to charge them.
Even without a drugged driving charge, drivers who refuse a test can still lose their licenses. If the DMV determines the drivers' refusal came after police legally arrested them and warned them of the consequences, it will revoke their license for a year, or 18 months with a prior conviction.
But McCormick said even a license revocation isn’t guaranteed, and it’s not a replacement for a driving-while-ability-impaired by drugs charge, especially since many Long Islanders continue to drive — and get into fatal crashes — on revoked licenses, as Newsday previously reported.
"The whole goal of the bill is to stop you and get intervention before you crash and kill," she said. "Revoking a license without the other interventions of assessment, treatment, behavior modification, supervision, driver retraining, etc., is not an effective deterrent or substitute for prosecution."
The drugged driving bill under consideration by the legislature redefines drugs, for the purposes of the traffic law, as "any substance or combination of substances that impair, to any extent, physical or mental abilities." It also would require drivers to submit to an evaluation by officers trained in drug recognition.
Assemb. Bill Magnarelli, who introduced the bill with fellow Syracuse Democrat Sen. Chris Ryan, told Newsday he supports the broader definition in part because it’s used by so many other states. New York, Massachusetts, Alaska and Florida are the only states that define drugged driving by a specific list, according to the NTSB, which recommends the broader definition. (For example, Vermont prohibits driving on "any drug" that impairs "a person’s ability to operate a motor vehicle safely.")
By freeing prosecutors from the requirement to name the drug and show it’s on the list, the law would allow them to press charges even after a test refusal, McCormick said.
"Don't get me wrong, my case is weaker ... if I don't have the test, but we should still be able to put it before a jury and let that jury decide," she said.
The bill has 50 co-sponsors in the 150-seat Assembly and 28 in the 63-seat Senate but faces opposition from some Assembly Democrats concerned about expanding police powers, according to Magnarelli.
Emails requesting comment from spokespeople for state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie went unanswered.
During budget hearings, representatives from The Legal Aid Society and the Chief Defenders Association of New York testified against the bill, citing the potential for wrongful arrests and convictions.
Broadening the definition of drugs will lead to "wrongful accusations of those who are taking (but are not impaired by) a medication for legitimate purposes," as well as "physical and mental conditions that can resemble and mimic drug impairment," they said.
Sisitzky, of the civil liberties union, said the proposed law’s looser definition of drugs could be disproportionately applied against people of color or other marginalized groups.
"We have real fears that are borne out by a history of how we've seen law enforcement engage with New Yorkers, with the kind of disparities that exist in vehicle and traffic stops already," he said.
Magnarelli said he tried to address some of these concerns by including a clause requiring the government to collect data on the race, gender and ethnicity of all drivers stopped, arrested and convicted under the proposed law. The bill also has a five-year sunset clause.
"Never would I say that [discrimination] is never going to happen — unfortunately, we live in a society where it could," he said. "But the bottom line is this: 46 or 47 other states have this legislation."
Erica Woods said her son Eryk’s death last October tore her family apart.
She’s not sure if her surviving son, who is autistic and nonverbal, fully understands what happened.
"I know he knows his brother's gone, but I don't think he understands he's gone gone," she said, wiping away tears in her living room as the teenager moaned from his bedroom on a May afternoon.
"From the time they were little kids ... whenever his brother was upset, [Eryk] was, like, the only one person that could calm him down."
The driver who hit McPherson, David Alfaro, 21, was charged with driving while impaired by marijuana, driving without a license and vehicular manslaughter. Alfaro’s defense attorney, Steven Politi, said his client maintains his innocence.
"This was a very unfortunate tragedy where the deceased entered the lane that my client was traveling in legally," he said. "Our heart breaks for the family who lost their child."
But prosecutors allege Alfaro caused the accident, and Woods said she feared he could get a plea deal that would allow him to escape jail time.
And while nothing can bring back her son,who had a radiant smile and was just starting to come into his own, she said more should be done to deter drugged driving.
Woods, who is Black, said she thinks police abuses and racial profiling are real problems, but that shouldn’t mean drivers can avoid charges by refusing a drug test.
"They should close that loophole," she said. "Whether it's alcohol or drugs, it's the same thing. ... Because the same result is going to happen. You're going to hit somebody and kill somebody."
A driver who prosecutors allege was high on marijuana struck 19-year-old Eryk McPherson in October while he biked home from his job stocking shelves in Central Islip.
Paramedics rushed the Longwood High School honors graduate to the hospital, where he later died, another fatality underscoring a growing problem of Long Island motorists who cause injuries while under the influence of drugs.
"I saw him take his very first breath and his very last breath," his mother, Erika Woods, 47, said of her son, who loved anime and took care of his autistic younger brother. "I really wouldn’t wish that on anybody."
Crashes like these are at the center of a simmering political debate in Albany over laws that in some cases are more lenient toward drugged driving than drunken driving.
While alcohol is the leading cause of impaired crashes nationally, drugged driving — involving cannabis and all other drugs, from fentanyl to amphetamines — is a significant and increasing threat, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. State data shows around a quarter of Long Island's fatal crashes had a "drug-involved driver" in 2023, a number that has trended upward over the previous decade.
Prosecutors and road safety advocates say part of the problem is a loophole in the current law. In cases without serious injuries, drivers on any drug besides alcohol can avoid criminal charges if they refuse to take a blood, urine or other chemical test. That's different than the law around drunken driving and can prevent the state from intervening before someone is injured, they say.
The law "lets people who are creating a very serious safety situation with their impairment off the hook," said Robert Sinclair, senior public affairs manager at AAA Northeast.
Meanwhile, statewide data shows the proportion of drivers who refused to take a test after being pulled over by trained officers doubled over five years, to around a fifth in 2022.
A bill in Albany would address the loophole by redefining the drugs it’s illegal to drive on — from cannabis and the state’s list of controlled substances to any substance that impairs "physical or mental abilities."
This broader definition would allow law enforcement to get around a legal requirement to name the drug a driver was on and would also ban driving on novel designer drugs that aren’t on the controlled substances list, proponents say.
The law’s backers — the governor and 78 legislators from both parties, including 15 co-sponsors from Long Island — say the new definition of "drugs" would be similar to the vast majority of other states and is recommended by the National Transportation Safety Board.
But opponents argue the broad definition could lead to prosecution for benign substances or even mental health conditions and could be applied unevenly, pointing to a history of discrimination in policing.
"I read that [new definition] to potentially cover having a morning cup of coffee, having an energy drink, having over-the-counter or prescribed medication," said Michael Sisitzky, assistant policy director at the New York Civil Liberties Union. "Pretty much anything could be swept within that definition."
The proposal was part of budget negotiations but didn’t make it into the final package, passed in early May. Now, it’s being considered as a stand-alone bill as the legislature approaches the end of its annual session in mid-June.
Vanderbilt Avenue and Joshua's Path in Central Islip, where Eryk McPherson was hit while riding his bicycle home. Credit: Morgan Campbell
For her part, Woods hopes it passes because it could deter drivers from driving while high. She believes many factors make Long Island roads unsafe — from a lack of sidewalks in her neighborhood to misplaced priorities on who police pull over. And while she supported the state’s legalization of marijuana in 2021, she thinks too many drivers are driving high — on weed as well as other drugs — with too few consequences.
"If you get caught driving while you're high, you're going to get in trouble — that's what's supposed to happen. That's not what's happening now," she said.
The proportion of fatal crashes with a "drug-involved driver" trended upward between 2014 and 2023, according to state data analyzed by the Institute for Traffic Safety Management and Research in Albany. Long Island's proportion has consistently been higher than the rest of the state, rising from 17% in 2014 to 30% in 2020, before falling to 24% in 2023.
The data reflects crashes where drugs other than alcohol were found in a driver’s drug test, police report or ticket record.
In some recent years, there were actually more fatal crashes with a drugged driverthan those with a "drinking driver," a category that can overlap. However, a spokesperson for the Albany-based institute cautioned against comparing the statistics because of uncertainties in the data. The drug numbers areaffected by how often tests are performed, as well as the fact that some drugs — like THC, the active ingredient in cannabis — remain at detectable levels in the body even after their influence has waned. However, other drugs can metabolize out of a driver’s system quickly, before a drug test is performed, according to the NTSB.
Still, cannabis, opioid and other drug use may be part of the reason why, after decades of decline, traffic fatalities have been trending upward nationally since 2014, according to Guohua Li, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University.
"Definitely, alcohol is still the elephant in the room," he told Newsday. "But cannabis and other drugs have added to the landscape and made things much worse in recent years."
Addiction specialists said the increase in drugged driving crashes is likely linked to the prevalent use of various substances, including more potent marijuana that increases the risk of becoming dependent on it. Although a state-sponsored study found no increase in cannabis use by drivers after its legalization in 2021, it did find an increase in opiate and stimulant use.
People are continuing to battle mental health and substance abuse issues exacerbated during the pandemic that could be reflected on our roads, according to addiction experts like Rockville Centre-based Dr. Stuart Wasser.
"Is there increased drugged driving versus increased drug use? It's probably proportional. As more people are using drugs, more and more people are driving while under the influence," said Wasser, who treats people for addiction disorders.
New York state troopers operate a sobriety checkpoint on the Newbridge Road entrance ramp to the Southern State Parkway in February 2019. Credit: Jeff Bachner
Laws against drugged driving were created after laws against drunken driving, but their enforcement is challenged by the unique ways drugs interact with the human body.
In 1910, New York became the first state to pass a law against driving in an "intoxicated condition," which courts soon interpreted to mean "imbibing enough liquor" to render one incapable of devoting "prudent" and "reasonable" attention to the road.
Initially, convictions depended on officers’ reports of drivers’ conduct and demeanor, but in 1941, the law was amended to also allow for the admission of blood alcohol content tests as evidence, according to a historical analysis by the appellate division court. New York eventually adopted laws making blood alcohol content sufficient evidence on its own for a criminal conviction. At first, these so-called "per se" laws set the limit at 0.15%, then 0.10%, then 0.08% by 2003.
The state passed its first drugged driving law, the basis for the current statute, in 1966, defining drugs as those on the state list of controlled substances. The list has been updated over time and today includes hundreds of illegal drugs and their metabolites — derivatives produced as the body breaks them down. To bring charges, prosecutors must name the drug a driver was on in order to show it is on the list, which often requires a chemical test.
Unlike with alcohol, New York has no per se impairment threshold for drugs — meaning that an amount of drugs in the system by itself isn’t sufficient for a charge. Prosecutors, experts from the NTSB and marijuana legalization groups like NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marajuana Laws, have all said that’s a good thing, since most drugs show only a weak correlation between concentration in bodily fluids and the degree of impairment. Alcohol is actually unusual in this regard, with a clear connection between BAC and inebriation.
Instead of a per se limit, drugged driving convictions require, in addition to naming the drug, officers’ observations of impairment. Usually this involves field sobriety tests, when an officer examines a driver’s eye movements or asks them to perform physical tasks like the walk-and-turn.
Police claim that such psychophysical tests and exams are reliable, but Dan Russo, a defender with Suffolk County’s 18B program, which provides free legal services to those who can’t afford lawyers, said many officers aren’t well trained.
"It’s really, in my opinion, junk science," he said of field sobriety tests for drugs. "But juries will give weight to that, even though I don't think there's much to it."
Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly during a news conference in July. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
Maureen McCormick, an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County who specializes in prosecuting impaired drivers, said psychological tests and physical exams are the best option available for policing drugged driving, given the limitations of determining impairment based on drug concentration in the body. Training has improved and body-worn camera footage can provide a supplement, she added.
"A body-worn camera operates first to make sure that the police are behaving the way they ought to be, and aren't targeting people. ... It's also a great tool, so that instead of having to rely on the cops’ words, the judge and the jury can see for themselves what it is that they were seeing," McCormick said.
Proponents of tightening the drugged driving law argue novel drugs — like new forms of ecstasy, synthetic marijuanas and xylazine (a veterinary tranquilizer also known as "tranq") — often show up on the street before they are added to the health department’s controlled substances list.
Prosecutors have tried but failed to get around the list. In a 2004 case, the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office charged Vincent Litto, 19, under the original drunken driving statute for intoxication even though he was high on "dust-off" (a compressed gas that is not a controlled substance) when he crashed into another car, killing a teenager. On appeal, the court upheld 12 other charges against Litto but threw out an intoxication charge, ruling the law applies only to alcohol. As a result, a charge for criminally negligent homicide was also dropped.
The requirement a drug be on the list "really handcuffs police," said Sinclair, of AAA.
McCormick, who helped prosecute Litto before joining the Suffolk District Attorney's Office, said the existing law leaves open another, perhaps more important loophole.
If a driver pulled over for suspected drunken driving refuses to take a breath, urine or blood test, police can fall back on the original drunken driving law that preceded BAC testing technology, bringing charges based on demeanor and conduct alone. But if the same driver were instead suspected of driving high on any other drug, the police wouldn’t be able to bring charges since they would not be able to name the drug through a chemical test, according to McCormick. In New York, police can get a warrant compelling a blood test in a suspected drugged driving case only if the driver has seriously injured or killed someone.
At least some people who drive high may see test refusal as an attractive option. Chemical testing refusals among drivers evaluated by trained officers doubled from 11% of cases in 2018 to 22% in 2022, according to ITSMR. It’s unclear how many of those drivers were actually impaired, but Suffolk District Attorney Ray Tierney said he’d seen four cases in recent months where allegedly impaired drivers walked because prosecutors were unable to charge them.
Even without a drugged driving charge, drivers who refuse a test can still lose their licenses. If the DMV determines the drivers' refusal came after police legally arrested them and warned them of the consequences, it will revoke their license for a year, or 18 months with a prior conviction.
But McCormick said even a license revocation isn’t guaranteed, and it’s not a replacement for a driving-while-ability-impaired by drugs charge, especially since many Long Islanders continue to drive — and get into fatal crashes — on revoked licenses, as Newsday previously reported.
"The whole goal of the bill is to stop you and get intervention before you crash and kill," she said. "Revoking a license without the other interventions of assessment, treatment, behavior modification, supervision, driver retraining, etc., is not an effective deterrent or substitute for prosecution."
The drugged driving bill under consideration by the legislature redefines drugs, for the purposes of the traffic law, as "any substance or combination of substances that impair, to any extent, physical or mental abilities." It also would require drivers to submit to an evaluation by officers trained in drug recognition.
Assemb. Bill Magnarelli, who introduced the bill with fellow Syracuse Democrat Sen. Chris Ryan, told Newsday he supports the broader definition in part because it’s used by so many other states. New York, Massachusetts, Alaska and Florida are the only states that define drugged driving by a specific list, according to the NTSB, which recommends the broader definition. (For example, Vermont prohibits driving on "any drug" that impairs "a person’s ability to operate a motor vehicle safely.")
By freeing prosecutors from the requirement to name the drug and show it’s on the list, the law would allow them to press charges even after a test refusal, McCormick said.
"Don't get me wrong, my case is weaker ... if I don't have the test, but we should still be able to put it before a jury and let that jury decide," she said.
The bill has 50 co-sponsors in the 150-seat Assembly and 28 in the 63-seat Senate but faces opposition from some Assembly Democrats concerned about expanding police powers, according to Magnarelli.
Emails requesting comment from spokespeople for state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie went unanswered.
During budget hearings, representatives from The Legal Aid Society and the Chief Defenders Association of New York testified against the bill, citing the potential for wrongful arrests and convictions.
Broadening the definition of drugs will lead to "wrongful accusations of those who are taking (but are not impaired by) a medication for legitimate purposes," as well as "physical and mental conditions that can resemble and mimic drug impairment," they said.
Sisitzky, of the civil liberties union, said the proposed law’s looser definition of drugs could be disproportionately applied against people of color or other marginalized groups.
"We have real fears that are borne out by a history of how we've seen law enforcement engage with New Yorkers, with the kind of disparities that exist in vehicle and traffic stops already," he said.
Magnarelli said he tried to address some of these concerns by including a clause requiring the government to collect data on the race, gender and ethnicity of all drivers stopped, arrested and convicted under the proposed law. The bill also has a five-year sunset clause.
"Never would I say that [discrimination] is never going to happen — unfortunately, we live in a society where it could," he said. "But the bottom line is this: 46 or 47 other states have this legislation."
A photograph of Erica Woods' late son, Eryk McPherson, is displayed prominently in her Brentwood home. Credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas
Erica Woods said her son Eryk’s death last October tore her family apart.
She’s not sure if her surviving son, who is autistic and nonverbal, fully understands what happened.
"I know he knows his brother's gone, but I don't think he understands he's gone gone," she said, wiping away tears in her living room as the teenager moaned from his bedroom on a May afternoon.
"From the time they were little kids ... whenever his brother was upset, [Eryk] was, like, the only one person that could calm him down."
The driver who hit McPherson, David Alfaro, 21, was charged with driving while impaired by marijuana, driving without a license and vehicular manslaughter. Alfaro’s defense attorney, Steven Politi, said his client maintains his innocence.
"This was a very unfortunate tragedy where the deceased entered the lane that my client was traveling in legally," he said. "Our heart breaks for the family who lost their child."
But prosecutors allege Alfaro caused the accident, and Woods said she feared he could get a plea deal that would allow him to escape jail time.
And while nothing can bring back her son,who had a radiant smile and was just starting to come into his own, she said more should be done to deter drugged driving.
Woods, who is Black, said she thinks police abuses and racial profiling are real problems, but that shouldn’t mean drivers can avoid charges by refusing a drug test.
"They should close that loophole," she said. "Whether it's alcohol or drugs, it's the same thing. ... Because the same result is going to happen. You're going to hit somebody and kill somebody."
Every 7 minutes on average a traffic crash causing death, injury or significant property damage happens on Long Island. A Newsday investigation found that traffic crashes killed more than 2,100 people between 2014 and 2023 and seriously injured more than 16,000 people. To search for fatal crashes in your area, click here.
