Pubdate: Mon, 30 Jun 2014
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2014 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.theprovince.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Douglas Quan
Page: A12
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?224 (Cannabis and Driving)

DRUG-IMPAIRED DRIVING LAW IS A WORK IN PROGRESS

Six years after federal law changes gave police new powers to compel 
suspected drug-impaired drivers to take roadside sobriety tests, 
watchdogs say the system has been ineffective, resulting in few 
charges. But there is no consensus as to what should be done about it.

A B.C. technology company is producing what it says will be the first 
commercial marijuana-detecting breathalyzer, but a prototype is still 
a few months away and needs further testing. The advocacy group MADD 
Canada recently went to Parliament Hill to push the idea of random 
roadside saliva testing - a system already in use in Australia and 
Europe but likely to draw concerns about civil liberties here.

And unlike the 0.08 per cent blood alcohol concentration threshold, 
there's no scientific consensus about how much consumption of certain 
drugs will cause impairment, further complicating matters.

"Were moving forward. We're not quite there yet," said Doug Beirness, 
an impaired-driving research consultant in Ontario.

Under 2008 Criminal Code amendments, an officer who suspects a driver 
may be impaired by drugs can demand that the driver take part in a 
physical coordination test, known as a Standardized Field Sobriety Test.

If the driver fails that test, the officer can compel the driver to 
go to the police station for a lengthier evaluation by a certified 
drug-recognition expert.

If the expert believes the driver is impaired by a particular drug, 
the expert can order the driver to submit a blood, urine or saliva sample.

"Unfortunately, the new drug impaired driving law has proven to be 
very costly, time-consuming, and cumbersome to enforce and 
prosecute," says an article in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention 
and written by Western University law professors Robert Solomon and 
Erika Chamberlain.

The article said only 1,126 drug impaired driving charges were laid 
in Canada in 2012, which is less than two per cent of the total 
impaired driving charges that year.

Further, the article said, "Canadian courts remain skeptical about 
the link between the presence of drugs in a driver's system and the 
actual impairment of his or her driving ability."

Enter the Cannabix Breathalyzer, a hand-held device for detecting 
marijuana being developed by B.C. technology company West Point Resources.

Company officials say their device will be able to tell whether a 
person has consumed marijuana within the past two or three hours and 
can help bolster the observations of officers in the field.

"The likelihood of conviction goes up a lot more," said company 
president Kal Malhi, a retired B.C. RCMP officer who worked four 
years in the drug section.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom