 | Drug Testing: Driver Drug-Testing trial begins |
 Police have begun a voluntary trial of officers at drink-driving checkpoints judging whether drivers are impaired by drugs, and they also want to change the law to make prosecution easier.
Police bosses want the law changed so that driving while "impaired" by legal or illegal drugs is banned (the current law bans driving while "incapable"), but they have proposed different penalties depending on the legal status of the drug. A driver thought to be "impaired" by cannabis will be treated more harshly than a driver who is just as impaired on prescription drugs such as morphine or amphetamines or the legal drug alcohol.
Drivers will be asked to:
* Walk in a straight line.
* Stand on one leg.
* Hold their heads back and touch their noses.
* Close their eyes and estimate 30 seconds.
NORML advises:
* Refuse to perform the test - this is a completely voluntary trial so don't incriminate yourself;
* Practise these tasks so you can perform them if you ever have to;
* Stand up to this blatant erosion of your rights! This is not about safety, it is about giving police more powers to decide who is acceptable (to them) and who should be locked up.
It is important to remember that taking part in this trial is voluntary. "Specially trained" officers at drink-driving checkpoints will first perform a standard breathalyser test. If the driver passes but in the opinion of the officer appears to be under the influence of something, drivers will be looked closely in the eye and then asked to perform some "divided attention" coordination tests. If the driver fails to perform these tasks to the officer's satisfaction, a medical doctor will be asked to give a second opinion that the driver is impaired.
NORML believes this is an improvement on the original proposal to take blood or urine samples, which has privacy concerns and can only show previous use rather than measure current impairment, but it is still a significant concern that police will rely only on opinions to prove impairment. The subjective opinions of potentially biased people would not be acceptable to secure drink-driving convictions, and it should not be acceptable in the case of other drugs simply because they are illegal.
Drug tests starting for drivers
New Zealand Herald, 7 May 2004.
By James Gardiner
Drug testing of drivers will start next week with specially trained police stationed at drink-driving checkpoints.
The testing will initially be voluntary, but police are counting on the overconfidence or irrationality of drug users for compliance.
Drivers who pass the alcohol breath test but are thought to be impaired will be asked to undergo a series of tests including walking a straight line, standing on one leg, holding their heads back and touching their noses, and closing their eyes and estimating when 30 seconds have elapsed.
Police are confident, based on a similar programme in Britain, that most people will volunteer even though they risk being charged with driving under the influence of drugs if they fail.
Whether the charges will stick will be another matter. Police will not rely on blood or urine tests because no reliable tests exist to prove impairment.
Britain conducted voluntary tests for five years before a law change this year made the testing compulsory.
In the UK only 3 to 4 per cent of drivers asked to undergo the tests refused, said New Zealand road policing manager Superintendent Steve Fitzgerald.
Yet 38 per cent of those who agreed to be tested failed.
"I suppose you can then work on the basis that people who are impaired certainly don't make rational decisions," he said.
Britain's national drug recognition training officer Steve Collier has spent the past three weeks training 30 New Zealand police officers in how to spot drug-impaired drivers.
He said drivers were often keen to perform the tests because they had seen them on television "and they want to have a go".
It had taken each officer three days to learn how to conduct the tests, which also included inspecting drivers' eyes to see if they were flickering uncontrollably - a sign of depressants (including alcohol), inhalants or phencyclidine (pcp) - or if their pupils were smaller or larger than normal.
Mr Collier said the "divided attention tests" were devised because driving was a divided attention task.
Mr Fitzgerald said that if a test were failed, the next step would be to get a doctor to assess the driver and to provide an opinion on whether he or she was impaired to the point of being unable to drive safely.
The doctor's evidence and that of the police officer conducting the tests, which would be videotaped, would be presented to the court in a prosecution.
Asked whether such subjective tests and the opinions of doctors and police about impairment levels and their cause would be enough to gain convictions, he said not necessarily.
"It's a matter of building up your expertise and actually proving it in court, and that's part of the reason we're having trained officers."
Mr Fitzgerald said that training medical practitioners in assessing drug impairment would be the next step.
The National Organisation for Reform of Marijuana Laws (Norml) says the drug testing would unfairly target cannabis users.
President Chris Fowlie said smokers should refuse to undergo the voluntary tests on principle because they were subjective rather than objective and because police who were potentially biased against cannabis users would be conducting them.
"This is not about safety," Mr Fowlie said. "Does the moderate use of cannabis cause impairment? The research says it doesn't. In fact it can make you a safer driver because you are less likely to take risks."
The requirements
Drivers will be asked to:
* Walk in a straight line.
* Stand on one leg.
* Hold their heads back and touch their noses.
* Close their eyes and estimate 30 seconds.
(c) New Zealand Herald
letters@nzherald.co.nz
Police push for tougher law on drugged drivers
New Zealand Herald, 12 May 2004.
By James Gardiner
Police are pushing for tougher laws to make it easier to prosecute people driving under the influence of drugs.
They also want legal drugs covered along with banned substances.
With a trial of voluntary driver drug testing starting this week in association with drink-driving checkpoints, police claim it is too tough to get a conviction for drugs other than alcohol.
The 1998 Land Transport Act makes it an offence to drive "or attempt to drive a motor vehicle on a road while under the influence of drink or a drug or both, to such an extent as to be incapable of having proper control of the vehicle".
A report released by the police said the words "incapable of proper control" set a high threshold and meant only those who were extremely impaired were likely to be convicted.
Though breath and blood testing can measure the level of alcohol present, similar tests cannot reliably measure the level of drug impairment. The ESR charges $200 to test a blood sample for one substance but screening for more than one costs $2850.
In December the Government agreed in principle to introduce a new offence of being impaired by illicit drugs while in control of a motor vehicle.
But the report, which the police commissioned from British company Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), said the Government had overlooked a significant point. "It is not the legal status of the substance that is the road safety issue, but the level of impairment that it causes."
Compounds found in illicit drugs were also found in some legal drugs, which would create difficulty establishing a schedule of banned substances, TRL said. "Experience from the world of drug testing in sport, as well as the enforcement arena, has shown that those producing drugs will, whenever possible, attempt to find ways around any schedule by introducing new variants."
TRL, whose staff will train police officers in drug recognition testing, said the Government would be better to include all drugs in the law rather than trying to amend it in the future to cover legal drugs.
It said under new drug-driving laws in Britain and Victoria the offence related to the level of impairment but offenders were treated differently. Those impaired by illicit drugs were prosecuted while those impaired by legal drugs could be treated more leniently, such as with a temporary suspension of the right to drive.
Victoria police are to test saliva-based roadside drug tests from July 1 for a year and New Zealand police are keen to monitor the results.
Transport Minister Pete Hodgson was not ready to answer questions about the issues until police and transport officials reported back to him this month.
The drug testing programme the police will run with drink-driving checkpoints is voluntary. People will be asked to perform "divided attention" tasks such as walking a straight line, turning and walking back. If they fail, a doctor will assess the level of impairment and the police plan to use that opinion plus that of the police officer as the basis for prosecution.
British testing
* In Britain only 3 to 4 per cent of drivers asked to undergo the tests refused
* Of those who agreed to be tested, 38 per cent failed.
(c) New Zealand Herald
letters@nzherald.co.nz
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