Pubdate: Sat, 21 Nov 2015 Source: Winnipeg Free Press (CN MB) Copyright: 2015 Winnipeg Free Press Contact: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/send_a_letter Website: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/502 Author: Gordon Sinclair Jr. Page: B1 THE DOPE DILEMMA Should you call police if you suspect a driver is impaired by marijuana? I CAME bumper to bumper with a dilemma on a Sunday evening two weeks ago. A dilemma that forced me to make a decision I'm still debating. Later, it would make me wonder what most of you would have done if you had been there. It was just before closing time at the Chamois Car Wash on Waverley Street when I pulled up, rolled down my window and the pleasant young woman asked what kind of air freshener I preferred with my wash. That's when the strong, pungent smell of marijuana hit me. It was coming from the decal-decorated blue Honda hatchback in front of my car. The Chamois doesn't include cannabis as one of its air fresheners. But, as the attendant who handed me my choice of freshener informed me, it's not uncommon for customers to arrive in vehicles that reek of pot. Just like the car the brazen young man flicked the stub of his reefer out of. Then he got out and ground it into ash with his shoe. Initially, it was the overwhelming smell of pot that had me concerned the driver might be impaired. And hence my dilemma: should I call the cops or let him go and hope nothing happened to him or someone else down the road? Of course, if the young man I later met inside the car wash had smelled of alcohol and appeared to be drunk, there would have been no dilemma. But I didn't even know how police assess pot smokers for impaired driving. As far as I knew, there's nothing like the standard .08 blood-alcohol measurement that most Canadian jurisdictions use for their drunk-driving threshold. So, I spoke with Const. Stephane Fontaine, the Winnipeg Police Service's impaired-driving countermeasures co-ordinator this week. "When it comes to enforcement, you're right," Fontaine said. "We don't have a per se limit of how much THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, the primary psychoactive constituent of cannabis) is allowed." In the U.S., Washington and Colorado have legislated five nanograms of THC per millilitre of blood as the impairment level. In the U.S., police can routinely demand a blood sample. Canadian law only allows police to collect a blood sample in specific suspected impaired-driving cases where, for instance, a fatality is involved. Even with the five-nanogram level set, there is debate about how pot affects individuals differently. As Fontaine told me, smoking one joint won't necessarily affect a driver to the degree that a charge could be laid. "For some people, that may not impair them to the same degree as someone else." But when police suspect a driver is impaired by pot, they can do a standard roadside sobriety test. If the driver fails, the person is arrested and taken to a police station where one of the 22 police officers certified to assess whether a person has drugs in their system uses a series of tests that include the examination of pupils in various light conditions. The evaluators combine the police report from the roadside observations to make their assessment and demand a urine sample. "They will make basically a call," Fontaine said. "Yes or no. Is the person impaired?" Making that call can get complicated. There are drivers who mix booze with pot or other drugs. The evaluators may have to sort through that. "It's not cut and dry. It's a complex aspect of enforcement," Fontaine said. It works, he added. "It's not voodoo. It's scientifically proven." As for how it will work if the new Liberal government legalizes recreational marijuana use, Fontaine said look no further than Colorado. "You see a huge increase in everything, fatalities (and) more serious accidents." Well, you may if you put total credibility in a study done by a federal anti-pot drug enforcement organization, the aptly named Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. The Denver Post, which has a news website devoted exclusively to stories about marijuana, takes issue with some of the findings. A recent Gallup poll found half of Americans don't think marijuana will have any effect on road safety in legalized states. Which brings me back to my own concern at the car wash. I asked Fontaine if I should have phoned police, as if I didn't already know what he would say. "Yes," he said. "Let us determine. Put him through the evaluation or put him through the field sobriety test." But that's not what I did. Instead, I watched him pay for his car wash - and some munchies, of course - without fumbling for his cash. Then I watched him walk normally to the far end of the car wash where I caught up to him and spoke with him and his girlfriend. I gently asked if either one of them felt fit to drive. And got another predictable answer. I didn't mention his pot smoking, but I didn't have to. "Unfortunately," the young man said, "It's a bad habit." I told him it's not the habit I was concerned about. It's the habit of driving while practising his habit. I was concerned about the absence of licence plates on the car he had just purchased - and suggested he not take advantage of that and speed wherever he was going next. And then he was gone. Down the road where I hoped nothing bad would happen to him or anyone else. Now you know what I chose to do. So now it's your turn. What would you have done? More importantly, what, if anything, is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau going to do about any 'pot holes' that might have to be filled in Canada's impaired-driving laws? If he takes us down that road already well-travelled. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom