Yes. California’s DUI law covers driving under the influence of any “drug,” and the Vehicle Code defines that word broadly enough to include substances that are not controlled substances. If an inhalant such as an aerosol, a solvent, or a similar vapor impaired your ability to drive, that can support a DUI charge.
What counts as a “drug” for this charge
For Vehicle Code purposes, “drug” means “any substance or combination of substances, other than alcohol, which could so affect the nervous system, brain, or muscles” of a person as to impair, to an appreciable degree, the ability to drive the way an ordinarily prudent and cautious person would (Vehicle Code section 312). Nothing in that definition requires the substance to appear on a controlled-substance schedule. It is unlawful to drive under the influence of any drug, and separately unlawful to drive under the combined influence of alcohol and a drug (Vehicle Code section 23152(f), (g)). Read by its terms, the definition reaches an inhalant that has that effect.
One jury instruction covers alcohol and drugs
A single jury instruction, CALCRIM No. 2110, is used for driving under the influence of alcohol, of a drug, or of both. The prosecution must prove two things: that you drove, and that at the time your mental or physical abilities were impaired to the point that you could no longer drive with a sober driver’s ordinary caution. The instruction’s definition of “drug” tracks section 312, so the same test applies to an inhalant as to a pill or a powder. Jurors are also told that driving pattern alone does not settle whether someone was under the influence, although it counts as one factor among all the circumstances.
Being able to buy the product is not a defense
Many inhalants are household or industrial products sold in ordinary stores. That does not help with a DUI charge, which turns on whether you were impaired while driving. The Vehicle Code goes further for drugs generally: the fact that a person is, or has been, entitled to use a drug under California law “shall not constitute a defense” to a drug-DUI charge (Vehicle Code section 23630), and CALCRIM No. 2110 includes an optional sentence telling jurors the same thing.
How testing works when a drug is suspected
A driver lawfully arrested for DUI is deemed to have consented to a blood or breath test to measure alcohol, and to a blood test to measure drugs, with a urine test if a blood test is unavailable (Vehicle Code section 23612(a)(1)). If the arrest is for driving under the influence of a drug, or of a drug and alcohol, the person may choose blood or breath. But a person who chooses breath can be required to take a blood test too, when the officer has reasonable cause to believe a drug was involved and that a blood test will reveal evidence of it, and a person who cannot complete the blood test must take a urine test (section 23612(a)(2)(B), (C)). Because the statute uses breath testing to measure alcohol and blood testing to measure drugs, any chemical evidence of an inhalant would come from blood or urine, not from a breath number.
What this means for your case
This answer rests on the text of section 312: it does not exclude inhalants, and it does not require a controlled-substance schedule. The prosecution still has to prove that the substance actually impaired your driving when you drove. The details matter: what substance was involved, what testing was done and when, and what the officer saw before and during the stop.
If you are facing a DUI charge involving an inhalant, a solvent, or another non-alcohol substance, the Law Offices of David S. Chesley can go through the stop, the testing, and whether the evidence supports the charge. For how officers evaluate a suspected drug DUI, see drug DUI; being intoxicated in public, rather than while driving, falls under a different law discussed on the public intoxication page. Call (800) 755-5174 to discuss your options.