Pubdate: Sun, 02 May 2004 Source: Ottawa Sun (CN ON) Copyright: 2004, Canoe Limited Partnership Contact: http://www.fyiottawa.com/ottsun.shtml Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/329 Author: Lisa Lisle Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing) HIGH TIME FOR CHANGE IN IMPAIRED ATTITUDES New law should help make clear the dangers of drugs and driving Just days after burying his 18-year-old son, and still grappling with the notion he was gone, Gregg Thomson was faced with yet another distressing question. "I was driving with my daughter and asking, 'Where did we go wrong?' Thomson said, reflecting on all the thoughts that came with his son's death. Thomson's son Stan and his four close friends -- Alan Siew, 17, Dustin Record, 17, David Rider, 16, and Homayoun Chaudry, 17 -- were all killed in a horrific four-vehicle crash five years ago. The teen responsible for the collision, which also seriously injured three others, would later admit in court to smoking marijuana on the night of the crash. "I didn't understand why Stan would get in that car," Thomson said. "We told them time and time again about impaired driving." Offering a piece of that painful, yet still unsolved puzzle, Thomson's daughter told her father that she had heard his message loud and clear --- don't drink and drive. "She said, 'You always talked about drinking,' " Thomson said. "That was a wake-up call for me as to how targeted that message is." A study conducted by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health shows that many Ontario teens have been hearing the same thing. 'NO POWERS' As the number of kids admitting to drinking and driving steadily declines, the rate of kids smoking pot and getting behind the wheel has remained constant. In fact, more teens (about 20%) admit to using cannabis and driving than the 13.8% of kids admit to drinking and driving. Not surprised by the statistics, MADD Canada's national executive director Andrew Murie said the proposed drug-impaired driving legislation will help clarify the message it wants out there. Last week, Justice Minister Irwin Cotler introduced legislation that would give police the authority to demand physical tests and bodily fluids from drivers suspected of being impaired by drugs. "They've clearly got the message from groups like ours and others that if you choose to drink and drive the repercussions are fairly severe," Murie said. "But they're also smart enough to know that police had no powers to apprehend them if they smoked cannabis and drove." Drug-impaired driving is already an offence under the Criminal Code. Like alcohol-impaired driving, it carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment when it causes the death of another person. But unlike alcohol-impaired driving, providing a body fluid sample was not mandatory for those suspected of being impaired by drugs. The proposed legislation would allow police to conduct roadside attention tests and demand saliva, urine or blood samples if drivers fail. Refusal to comply with the demand would be a criminal offence. "I think this legislation is enough to say, 'If you do this, it's the same as drinking and driving,' " Murie said. "And groups like us have to be very vigilant in making sure that that's the message going out to students in all the programs that we offer." Both Murie and RCMP Const. Evan Graham, the national co-ordinator for the drug recognition expert (DRE) program, believe the legislation will also secure more convictions for drug-impaired driving, which will drive the message home. Currently, convictions for drug-impaired driving are rare. Graham said four provinces have registered convictions, but only British Columbia has secured convictions after trial. Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan have all had guilty pleas. Former Ottawa Valley lawyer and marijuana activist Rick Reimer was acquitted last January of charges of driving while impaired by marijuana after Justice Bruce MacPhee ruled there wasn't enough evidence to prove the multiple sclerosis sufferer was impaired. Graham said a DRE evaluation could have secured a conviction in a case like Reimer's because the officer wouldn't have performed just the roadside test. The DRE evaluation has 12 steps, including an eye examination and a series of divided-attention tests. While the teen responsible for the crash that killed Thomson's son admitted to smoking marijuana before the crash, charges of impaired driving causing death and impaired driving causing bodily harm were withdrawn because his impairment couldn't be proven; he pleaded guilty to charges of dangerous driving causing death and dangerous driving causing bodily harm. That outcome may not have been any different even with the new legislation since no roadside test was done and he wasn't hit with the impaired charges until two months after the crash, when toxicology results showed trace amounts of THC in his blood. Since there's no threshold for drug impairment like there is with alcohol (80 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood), critics believe cases will still be tossed out of court. "There's no use in having the law if you don't have that legal limit or threshold," said Canada Safety Council president Emile Therien. "We're not against the legislation," he added. "We think it's just a matter of putting the cart before the horse." Yet Marthe Dalpe-Scott, program manager for the toxicology service at the RCMP's forensic lab, believes putting that magic number in place would do more harm than good in terms of securing convictions. "The question with drugs, including marijuana is way more complicated," Dalpe-Scott said, noting the alcohol threshold was set after several scientific studies. "Various drugs will impair at different levels depending on the tolerance of the individual to the effect of the drug. 'FAIRLY LOW LEVEL' "We would end up having somebody who's a brand new user of the drug and that person may be impaired at a fairly low level in the blood while a person who has been habituated over a number of weeks or months will not necessarily be impaired at that same level," she added. Although the same applies to drinking alcohol, Dalpe-Scott said individuals will still be impaired at the same blood-alcohol level even if they aren't showing signs of intoxication. "If you put them in a driving situation, you will definitely detect impairment behind the wheel," she said, noting that impairment and intoxication are two different states. Sobriety tests will determine impairment, while the testing of bodily fluids will simply corroborate that drugs were in the suspect's system. "That will be confirmed forensically by a lab with a body fluid sample," Dalpe-Scott said. "But the confirmation will not be for use to do a quantitative measurement. It will be to say that what we found was consistent with what the DRE police officer detected during the test." Graham said false arrests will also be minimized since the suspect will have to pass a sobriety test. "If they pass the sobriety test, then away they go," he said. Although marijuana can stay in your system for days and even weeks, Dalpe-Scott pointed out that people who smoked a joint days before their traffic stop won't be accused of being impaired. "You will not then be under suspicion," Dalpe-Scott said. "You will be behaving exactly as you should unless you have another substance or you've gone to bed too late or you're playing with your cellphone. Impairment at the wheel is caused by many, many factors. But there will not be the cause relationship." With the legislation in the works for the past six years, most people believe it's the best way to go for now. "I believe that it is at the moment the very best approach that we can come up with to make sure that nobody is unjustly detained or unjustly accused," Dalpe-Scott said. And it seems to be working in the U.S., where the National Institute of Highway Traffic Safety found that DRE analysis was accurate 98% of the time. "That's a really high threshold to achieve," Murie said. With every new initiative comes the need for expert training. The federal government has pledged $910,000 over five years for training and the RCMP has reallocated $4.1 million to get a national DRE program under way. But Murie said more money will be needed, especially in Ontario and Quebec. "Certainly what's on the table is not enough," he said. "But it's a start and hopefully there will be more money coming out of the drug strategy for this kind of training." 'LOT OF MISINFORMATION' But even with that training, Canadian Professional Police Association president Tony Cannavino said the proposed legislation won't reduce drug-impaired driving on its own. "This new drug-impaired driving legislation is not a panacea to improving drug-impaired driving enforcement," he said. "Bill C-32 gives police officers access to the best available tools that currently exist. Further research is still required for the development of stronger and better drug detection tools." Graham believes police and MADD also need to do a better job of including drug-impaired driving in their presentations at schools. "Basically, our youth now have been bombarded with 'Don't drink and drive' since the time they were born," Graham said. "It's hit home and as a result they don't drink and drive. "But the drug aspect is relatively new in that it's a growing problem. And there's been a lot of misinformation out there about marijuana in particular and its effects on a person and their ability to drive a motor vehicle." But Murie said there's still a lot of work to do in reducing alcohol-impaired driving. "About 40% of the deaths on our roadways are still alcohol related," he said. "The best estimates that we're getting is that drugs are about 10%." Although no one expects the numbers to hit zero, Thomson said he's just "thrilled" that steps are being taken to reduce the number of families forced to go through what his has in the past five years. "The immediate response is to want it all fixed by tomorrow and I know this isn't going to happen," he said. "But this will help save lives and that's the bottom line. "That's what's important." 12 STEPS The drug recognition expert (DRE) evaluation is a standardized procedure for determining impairment by drugs. Here are the 12 steps involved in the procedure: 1. A breath test to rule out alcohol as the major cause of impairment. 2. An interview of the arresting officer by the drug recognition expert. 3. A preliminary examination of the subject by the DRE expert. 4. An eye examination, which looks for involuntary jerking when looking to the side or looking up, following a stimulus from side to side or up and down. 5. A series of divided-attention tests aimed at evaluating the subject's ability to multi-task, including listening to instructions while maintaining a stance, maintaining a stance with eyes closed, walking a straight line, turning in a prescribed way and walking back, standing on one foot in a prescribed way for a certain amount of time, and touching the tip of their nose with the tip of their finger as instructed. 6. The examination of vital signs (blood pressure, temperature and pulse). 7. A dark room examination of pupil sizes. 8. A check of muscle tone. 9. An examination of typical injection sites on the person's body. 10. The rendering of an opinion by the drug recognition expert. 11. An interview with the subject. 12. The provision of a bodily fluid sample. - --- MAP posted-by: Josh