RE: Drugged Driving
Thursday 13th March 2003
Drugged Driving
Will a new law come into force to tackle the growing problem of spaced out motorists?
Discussion
There is such a wide veritety of drugs that one maybe under the influence of if you include Prescription substances. It will be an absolute nightmare for the police to enforce this new law.
They will have to become amateur pharmicologists to get their heads round what a driver may have taken and what the legal limit for the drugs is before even deciding whether or not it may be illicit.
I know it is all in the aid of reducing accients and injury, but don't traffic cops have enough to do as it is?
It also is unlikely to take into account that people on prescribed painkillers build up a resistance to their perfectly legal drugs over long periods, so may have a very high ppm blood count even though they are as safe as they would be with out the drug in their system...
...I guess the same cam be said for alcohol, but this is very rearly precribed.
Mouse
They will have to become amateur pharmicologists to get their heads round what a driver may have taken and what the legal limit for the drugs is before even deciding whether or not it may be illicit.
I know it is all in the aid of reducing accients and injury, but don't traffic cops have enough to do as it is?
It also is unlikely to take into account that people on prescribed painkillers build up a resistance to their perfectly legal drugs over long periods, so may have a very high ppm blood count even though they are as safe as they would be with out the drug in their system...
...I guess the same cam be said for alcohol, but this is very rearly precribed.
Mouse
Over six months last year Durham Police have taken blood screenings from all of the 23 people killed in road accidents. The samples revealed that 50% had traces of either cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy or another prescrption drug.
Of course they bloody do. These drugs stay in your system for ages. In some cases months. And seeing as how half the population don't have a problem with the odd recreational drug it stands to reason that there will be traces of drugs in their bodies. It doesn't automatically mean they got toked up and went out for a drive.
I reckon that in some of the dodgier parts of the UK if you were to stop EVERY car passing along a road and force its driver to give a blood test you'd come up with a remarkably similar result to the 50% figure.
And remember children, don't drink and drive, smoke and fly
Andy
Of course they bloody do. These drugs stay in your system for ages. In some cases months. And seeing as how half the population don't have a problem with the odd recreational drug it stands to reason that there will be traces of drugs in their bodies. It doesn't automatically mean they got toked up and went out for a drive.
not true - for instance coke is out of your system within 24hrs - canabis takes up to 3 months.
I'm totally pro drug testing - dope and pills are the biggest problems - coke's if anything would improve responses - I can the AA recommeding a few lines instead of a can of red bull
THe effects have gone after an hour if your lucky ! If your tested 24hrs after a nosebag session there's no trace (urine/blood test) However if they take the hair strand test then that can show traces of coke. (Perhaps I'm sounding like I know too much about this subject ??!)
plotloss said: Yeah but the flip side of that is that within 24 hours the effects of the bolivian are gone. So in that scenario whilst you could be unimpaired chemically the traces would still show up in a drug test.
Tricky...
Matt.
What blew the previous tests out of the water, and why these schemes will fail is the sheer cost of testing.
Sure, you can do a basic test roadside or at the station for very little, but these are only qualitative tests and will only give a positive or negative result (i.e. no way to accurately tell whether you've got a positive because somebody is currently mashed, or whether they just had a spliff a month ago). In order to do a quantitative test, to a sufficient level of accuracy to prove a specified level of most drugs requires a Gas-Chromatogram-Mass-Spectrometer test which costs about £1100 per test.
Up to now the police get round this burden of proof, by not putting a specified acceptable quantitative limit, but instead using the term 'unfit'. 'Unfit' is determined by the opinion of a police doctor combined with a positive qualitative test. However, if the police were to make testing more widespread, then this slapdash system would not stand up to proper human rights scrutiny, and quantitative tests would be required.
(I used to work for the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependance, which advises customs and police)
Sure, you can do a basic test roadside or at the station for very little, but these are only qualitative tests and will only give a positive or negative result (i.e. no way to accurately tell whether you've got a positive because somebody is currently mashed, or whether they just had a spliff a month ago). In order to do a quantitative test, to a sufficient level of accuracy to prove a specified level of most drugs requires a Gas-Chromatogram-Mass-Spectrometer test which costs about £1100 per test.
Up to now the police get round this burden of proof, by not putting a specified acceptable quantitative limit, but instead using the term 'unfit'. 'Unfit' is determined by the opinion of a police doctor combined with a positive qualitative test. However, if the police were to make testing more widespread, then this slapdash system would not stand up to proper human rights scrutiny, and quantitative tests would be required.
(I used to work for the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependance, which advises customs and police)
Interestingly, specifically with weed, the powers that be are also aware that there amy be significant ground for the principle of 'unfit', which is crucial to all drink/drug driving charges to be challenged.
There is significant research to indicate that moderate smoking does not significantly reduce the standard of driving.
I used to have the results of the Canadian Department of Transports research, but don't have them to hand. Basically they tested a hundred or so drivers on a simulator, half were given a dose of THC and half a placebo. The 'stoned' drivers, on average, took longer to complete to course, but in general were more cautious. On low and medium level hazards both sets of drivers performed similarly, but on high level hazards (e.g. last second run-outs) the stoned drivers actually had a lower accident rate.
Interestingly, in self-reporting the stoned drivers gave themselves a far worse self-evaluation than the sober ones. (Similar tests on drunk drivers show they regard their performance far better than the control group).
There is significant research to indicate that moderate smoking does not significantly reduce the standard of driving.
I used to have the results of the Canadian Department of Transports research, but don't have them to hand. Basically they tested a hundred or so drivers on a simulator, half were given a dose of THC and half a placebo. The 'stoned' drivers, on average, took longer to complete to course, but in general were more cautious. On low and medium level hazards both sets of drivers performed similarly, but on high level hazards (e.g. last second run-outs) the stoned drivers actually had a lower accident rate.
Interestingly, in self-reporting the stoned drivers gave themselves a far worse self-evaluation than the sober ones. (Similar tests on drunk drivers show they regard their performance far better than the control group).
nefarious said:
v8thunder said:the road is purple and full of yellow rabbits playing guitars, god knows what'll happen.
Sounds like you're getting a better class of weed that the rest of the country
>> Edited by nefarious on Thursday 13th March 17:03
Getting a better class of ANYTHING more like!
Matt.
This is a touchy subject for me at the moment. My 20 year old son wrote off his car on Tuesday night after smoking "a bit of stuff". Having seen where he went off and looked at the wreckage in the salvage yard I am amazed he is alive. I don't know if he drives like an idiot all the time (I am told not) BUT people wouldn't pay to use cannabis if had NO effect would they? Rich... somewhat pissed off this week - especially having been to a RTA funeral last week!
v8thunder said: They need to lay off the drunk driving campaigns and transfer the funds over to targeting this.
>> Edited by RichB on Thursday 13th March 17:25
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