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.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom