Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2018 | 10:30 p.m.
A Las Vegas medical marijuana patient charged in the reckless driving death of a valley resident was issued a significantly lesser-than-expected sentence Wednesday in Clark County District Court.
Jeff Krajnak, 45, was given five years of supervised probation after pleading guilty to reckless driving and driving under the influence in an April 2017 crash at Boulder Highway and U.S. 95 that resulted in the death of Peter Napoli, 53. Police said Krajnak ran a red light at the intersection, T-boning Napoli’s sedan with his Jeep Wrangler.
Krajnak originally faced stiffer charges after blood tests showed more than twice the legal amount of active THC and more than eight times the legal amount of marijuana metabolites in his system. A regular cannabis user who consumes the plant to cope with post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from his wartime military service in Iraq and Afghanistan, Krajnak said he had not used the plant in over 20 hours before the fatal crash.
Krajnak pleaded no contest last month to charges of reckless driving and misdemeanor DUI. He faced up to six years in prison, but lauded District Judge Carolyn Ellsworth, who he said “was very fair.”
“She saw it for what it was,” Krajnak said.
Krajnak, whose complex case propelled him into speaking roles in local marijuana conferences, groups and publications, has become an advocate for a growing movement to alter Nevada’s policy on law enforcement’s classification of marijuana impairment. THC, the plant’s main psychoactive component, is fat soluble — meaning it can remain in a person’s body for weeks after it’s initially digested.
An active THC limit of two nanograms per milliliter and a metabolite count of five nanograms per milliliter has resulted in a greater number of Las Vegas drivers who aren’t likely impaired at the time of their arrests but test above the legal limit, Officer Larry Hadfield said earlier this year.
Comparatively speaking, legal marijuana states Colorado and Washington have a five-nanogram-per-milliliter limit for active THC count. In California and Oregon, no blood test exists because of limited research on the still-federally illegal plant. Instead, police officers use their own discretion along with routine field sobriety tests to determine a driver’s level of impairment.
Krajnak hired a private investigator, who helped convince prosecutors that Krajnak — driving with his then-6-year-old son at the time of the crash — was not at fault. The investigation determined that Napoli ran a red light at the busy intersection, not Krajnak. After passing a field sobriety test, a sample of his blood was taken that day and he was released. SWAT officers showed up at his home.
Krajnak, who served 15 years in the U.S. military, which included deployments to Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, was honorably discharged in 2013. He said he began taking cannabis to help reduce a daily regimen of 11 prescription medications.
