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[quote=Anonymous]Former prosecutor/defense attorney here.

If the drug convictions are for marijuana, I would essentially consider them nonexistent. Marijuana will be legal everywhere within another decade and the whole bullshit war on drugs has been an enormous waste of resources resulting in many ruined lives - I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy’s convictions have been an obstacle to traditional career success, for instance.

Was the DUI for alcohol or marijuana? There is plentiful gray area there because many DUI-marijuana convictions don’t actually involve impaired driving - THC stays in the body for weeks and the science around what constitutes an inebriating level of THC metabolite is still evolving. I have a shit ton of experience prosecuting and defending these cases so am not pulling this out my butt.

If the DUI was for alcohol I would want to take some time and get a sense of this man’s current relationship to alcohol use and whether it is disordered. I would not want to get into a relationship with an alcoholic, but wouldn’t have a problem with getting into a relationship with someone who uses marijuana for medical reasons or even recreationally so long as the use is not disordered.

As to the many judgmental comments here - I would dismiss them outright. The vast majority of people who drink alcohol have at one time or another driven under the influence - maybe not over .08, but nevertheless buzzed enough that their driving was not up to usual snuff. In my experience lots of folks who preach about DUI and are self righteous on the issue have done it themselves, but they think they’re different and that they weren’t that intoxicated. The vast majority of DUIs never get caught. Please understand that I am not condoning DUI, I am merely providing a pragmatic view of reality. I bet anything that some of the women on this board who look down their nose at your BF have gotten behind the wheel under the influence themselves - if not of alcohol than of prescription medications. Or they’ve driven while distracted by their cell phones, which NHTSA research shows is equal to if not more impairing than driving under the influence of alcohol/drugs.

You need to use your best judgment in assessing your BF’s ‘criminal’ background. The most important factor to consider is what is his current use of and relationship to substances that can lead to disordered use - alcohol being of greater concern than marijuana. Don’t automatically discount someone as a potentially great life partner because they don’t have an impeccable background by DCUM standards- if anything I would consider that an advantage. [/quote]

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