Stephen Harper will be introducing legislation to crack-down on "drugged driving" today. Past efforts at such legislation have been stymied by the fact that scientific tests have not been available for roadside use to accurately determine what substances a drugged driver has smoked, ingested or injected. However, this problem has been solved in the U.S. by the method of "drug recognition evaluation", which Andrew Murie, CEO for Mothers Against Drunk Driving Canada, describes as:
...a series of tests that look for families of drugs. As the driver performs the tests, a skilled officer will usually be able to tell what kind of drug is causing the impairment. Then a bodily fluid is demanded to confirm the result.
Here are some of the tests currently employed in the States.
1) The driver is asked to walk a straight line. While engaged in this task, the arresting officer begins to eat from a five lb bag of cheese doodles. If the driver diverges from the straight line and lunges at these cheese doodles, or even begs for just a handful of cheese doodles, then MARIJUANA is causing the impairment, and its slammer time for Stoner Dude.
2) The driver is asked to walk a straight line. The driver is then played a sample from "Tales of Mystery and the Imagination" by The Alan Parsons Project, or the long version of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, or "Tales From Topographic Oceans " by Yes, or some long-winded piece of crap by Phish. If they lay down on the road and stare at the stars, waving their hand back and forth to watch it "track", then LSD is causing the impairment. Starchild is going to Sing-Sing!
Note: grooving to anything by Yes, other than maybe "Starship Trooper", is usually a sign of impairment or stupidity. Even if you are not a police officer, feel free to whack hippy boy with a stick.
3) The driver is asked to alphabetically re-write all the street-names on a city map from longest to shortest, and they do a really thorough job. In this case, SPEED is the problem. And this dumb tweaker is off to the clink, but not until after they vacuum out the police cruiser and tidy up its glove box a bit.
4) The driver is asked to sit and watch their shoe for six hours. If they enjoy it, then they're on HEROIN. Our little junkie can fly himself right down to the courthouse.
Incidentally, the legislation does not mandate which particular "bodily fluid" can be demanded for which drug. Presumably this is left up to the discretion of the arresting officer. Its fun being a cop.
One problem: In the case of marijuana, even with a sample of body fluids, the cops will not be able to determine if that person was high while they were driving. Even then all they can say is that the person had been high at some point within a certain period of time (three weeks I think). The courts will not accept that and will strike this down.
ReplyDeleteActually Kyle, a saliva test would result much much higher traces of THC if you had just smoked than if you had smoked 3 weeks ago. The problem in the 1990s was that proper saliva testing technology didn't exist. The required test is now readily available at a cost-effective price - much cheaper than letting stoners drive freely and recklessly
ReplyDelete"Incidentally, the legislation does not mandate which particular "bodily fluid" can be demanded for which drug. Presumably this is left up to the discretion of the arresting officer. Its fun being a cop."
ReplyDeleteBigCityLib, the legislation states that once there is reasonable grounds to believe impairment, a test will be done by either saliva and urine, or blood.