Regulations and Government
How Long from Toke to Yoke? The FAA Wants To Find Out
Rescheduling created what FAA calls a dual-status gap
Detailed view of a cannabis bud held by tweezers under a light, emphasizing texture and trichomes.
© Photo by Jess Loiterton | Pexels

Aviation has a bright-line rule for alcohol: no drinking within eight hours before flying, the well-known “bottle to throttle” standard. For cannabis, no such number exists, and the FAA is now trying to find one, or something close to it. “Toke to yoke,” if you will.

The agency’s Office of Aerospace Medicine is sponsoring a project, run through the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, built around a critical question: after someone uses cannabis, how much time has to pass before they’re no longer impaired? According to the project’s federal filing, the FAA currently has no validated criteria to answer that question.