Pubdate: Mon, 22 Feb 2016 Source: Globe and Mail (Canada) Copyright: 2016 The Globe and Mail Company Contact: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168 HOW HIGH IS TOO HIGH TO DRIVE? Article 253 (1) of the Criminal Code of Canada outlaws the operation a motor vehicle, boat, aircraft or railway engine while a "person's ability to operate . . . is impaired by alcohol or a drug." The provision has existed for decades, but it's only recently that the justice system has seriously tried coming to grips with the question of drugged driving - and it has done so only semi-successfully. As the federal government prepares to legalize marijuana, here's another item to add to the to-do list: setting out specific enforcement criteria for driving under its influence. Other countries have done it - the United Kingdom has perhaps the strictest and most comprehensive set of laws - but not without difficulty. There are problems associated with establishing baseline levels of impairment. It took years to establish a consensus on legal limits for blood-alcohol content. Even those are imperfect, frequently contested, and variable according to jurisdiction. With pot, there isn't a ton of science on its effects on drivers. A 2002 special Senate committee considered the available evidence and suggested it might not constitute as serious an accident risk as alcohol. Some studies conducted in the intervening years have concluded otherwise. Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the Centre on Substance Abuse argue that stoned drivers are at least as dangerous as their drunk counterparts. Once the thorny issue of acceptable thresholds has been dispensed with, there's the question of coming up with a testing system that will stand up in court. The traditional observational methods used by police - things like balance tests - aren't always an accurate measurement of whether someone is impaired by pot. Blood analysis is believed to be effective, but it's invasive. Road-side saliva testing can be expensive, and it's often inconclusive. In other words, figuring out how to measure driving while high is a work in progress. But before legalization happens, there will have to be strict rules surrounding the substances people ingest when they get behind the wheel. Legalizing pot, as we've said before, will not mean the absence of laws surrounding pot. Instead, rules and regulations will have to multiply, covering where and to whom the drug can be sold, how it will be taxed, where it can be used - and what constitutes abuse. - --- MAP posted-by: Matt