Pubdate: Thu, 06 May 2004
Source: Lethbridge Herald (CN AB)
Copyright: 2004 The Lethbridge Herald
Contact:  http://www.mysouthernalberta.com/leth/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/239
Author: Jody Pressman

DRUGGED DRIVING LEGISLATION A LAME ATTEMPT TO SELL DECRIMINALIZATION

Editor:

Re: Drug driving already illegal, Herald Opinion, April 29.

The misguided drugged driving bill will not make the roads safer. Police 
already have standard impairment tests and field sobriety tests which 
should fully function for a test of impairment. Further tools forced 
through surreptitiously at the last minute of a lame duck government raises 
eyebrows of many.

According to statistics on the MADD Canada Web site www.madd.ca alcohol is 
society's "legal, oldest, and most popular drug," "6,507 Canadians died 
from alcohol consumption in 1995" and of those the largest number of deaths 
resulted from alcohol impairment. This same study showed the number of 
deaths in 1995 in Canada from all illicit drugs combined was only 805 and 
that doesn't begin to account the fraction of which were impaired driving 
related. MADD should focus its efforts where Canadians need it most; the 
experience and statistics show alcohol impairment is the real threat to 
Canadians. Everyone has a friend or family member whose life has been 
devastated by a drunk driver; we don't see the same social experience 
reflected of a problem of marijuana impairment and the statistics reflect 
this as well.

This legislation shoved through at the last minute to make the 
decriminalization bill more palatable to Canadians before an election is a 
cynical attempt to bandage up a misconceived approach to our drug laws 
which will neither make our streets nor Canadians in general any safer from 
what really threatens us.

JODY PRESSMAN

Ottawa, Ont.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart