The Cannabis Control Commission is working on making pot consumption more accessible with a pilot program for social consumption sites. But the newly approved program — and legalization in general — creates new challenges, including driving while under the influence of marijuana. WGBH News Morning Edition host Joe Mathieu sat down with the Director of Addiction Psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess, Dr. Kevin Hill, at the Boston Public Library to learn more about the state's efforts to crack down on driving while high. The transcript below has been edited for clarity.

Joe Mathieu: Recreational marijuana is now a reality in Massachusetts, and driving while high is a big concern. Regulators, law enforcement [and] the governor himself are calling for a new law on this. You've done a lot of research on it, doctor. Can you describe what effect marijuana has on us while we're driving?

Dr. Kevin Hill: It's a great question. I think people often try to compare the effects of cannabis on driving and the effects of alcohol and driving. Simply put, both affect our ability to drive, but in different ways. It's also dependent upon how experienced the user is. When you boil it down, essentially cannabis makes you overcorrect; it makes you do more to try to be cautious than you would if you were using alcohol, for example. So you might be very cautious and drive 35 [mph] in a 55 [mph area], which can be dangerous. Alcohol is a little bit different. [With] alcohol, you won't do the things that you're supposed to do, so you may lay on the gas [and] you may not check your mirrors.

Mathieu: We've had specially trained police officers who are doing field sobriety tests in the meantime because, as you've pointed out, there is no equivalent to a breathalyzer.

Hill: So where this is going to go, and where the governor wants it to go, is to be able to do a couple of things: biochemical verification, to be able to draw blood in the field, which is what they're already doing in Colorado, and to couple that with field sobriety testing. The law enforcement will have special officers who've been trained — drug recognition experts — and those will be folks who will be able to testify in court.

Mathieu: And they're already in the field doing this, right?

Hill: They're already in the field doing it. So I think that the push is to try to institute this in a larger way, and I think that's a good idea. It's doing the best that you can with the available technology, as they're doing in Colorado. But my concern is that we're really not looking at the larger issue. You'd mentioned the breathalyzer piece, and at the end of the day we really don't have the technology to be able to test for cannabis impairment in the way that we can for alcohol. I think that we should put more resources towards doing that, but it's kind of like we're putting a knee brace on when we need surgery. I think the governor could make a step towards allocating some of the tax revenues that we're gaining from the sale of cannabis or we could mandate that some of these companies put a portion of their profits towards advancing that science. It's mind boggling, frankly, to sit here year after year and to spend time talking about a half step here. This is a sub-optimal solution to the problem, and I don't think we should be making sub-optimal solutions to problems when lives are on the line.

Mathieu: One of the other big stories is the vaping story. There's a vaping ban now essentially on all products. Of course, there's a marijuana component to this — some people vape nicotine — but vaping THC oil has become a very popular alternative to actually smoking combustible marijuana. People are now without that. Has this been a massive regulatory failure, from your perspective?

Hill: It's a rash move. When you look at the data, the large majority of the problems of the deaths [and] other medical consequences that we've had relative to vaping have been with THC vape products obtained illicitly. I think there really needs to be a divide driven between people who are older — let's say 25 and above — and those 25 and below. For the people who are 25 and below, vaping is a serious issue. It's what they do instead of smoking cigarettes today. I think when you talk about this four-month ban of all vaping devices, I think you're really losing sight of the fact that there are adults above 25, generally, who have smoked cigarettes for years. And it does appear that vaping nicotine for those folks is a safer alternative. We wish they wouldn't do any of these things.

Mathieu: But they're inhaling smoke otherwise.

Hill: Yes, exactly. So I think for that group to perhaps drive them to New Hampshire or Rhode Island or whatever to try to obtain their vapes, perhaps that wasn't necessary. When you think about the fact that the majority of these deaths have been related to illicit THC vapes, I don't think you could have totally eliminated that.