COBOURG POLICE OFFICER QUALIFIES AS DRUG RECOGNITION
EXPERT

A Cobourg Police Service constable is one of a select few officers
across the province with the special designation of a Drug Recognition
Expert.

The 300-hour course, held at the Ontario Police College, involved a
200-hour field training and testing along with an eight-hour written
exam on January 2, 2007, at the York Regional Police Service
headquarters.

Under the federal government initiative, the RCMP was allotted
approximately $20-million to train law enforcement officers from
across the country to become drug recognition experts, Cobourg Police
Chief Garry Clement said.

The course is some of the "most intensive training ever offered in law
enforcement," he said.

"They have to learn the pharmacology of drugs and understand what
drugs are all about. They also have to learn the effects on a person,
and have to get themselves trained to a level where they can detect
and give expert opinion as to the level of impairment."

Chief Clement said Constable Legere is one of no more than 25 officers
in Ontario trained as drug recognition experts.

"We are on the forefront, and that's what I wanted to be," he
said.

Draft legislation has yet to be formalized giving police power to
perform the testing on an individual thought to be impaired by drugs
and driving a vehicle.

So as of now, an officer can only perform the tests on the driver with
the driver's consent.

"I'm hopeful the (Bill C-32) legislation will be brought forward this
next round and this legislation will be included in it," Chief Clement
said. "The legislation essentially wants to emphasize that impairment
by drugs is illegal..., but the problem is there is no testing
mechanism. What the draft legislation is (designed to do is ensure the
legal system) will recognize the drug recognition expert. Should that
come into play we are definitely going to have a lead."

At the moment there is no technology that exists to perform a test on
a person thought to be under the influence of drugs, as a road
screening device does for persons consuming alcohol and driving.

"So the mere fact that we have an officer trained puts us on the
forefront of law enforcement," Chief Clement said.

"There is no doubt in my mind that within five years there will be
something developed from a technology point of view that will allow us
to do testing, but in the interim this is a good start."

Chief Clement said Constable Legere spent hours of his own time
studying for the final exam which took eight hours.

During the course Constable Legere worked with members of American law
enforcement and had to perform tests on volunteers, looking for
clinical or physical signs of impairment by drugs.

Most of the people who volunteered to take part in the testing were
either inmates at a correctional institution in Arizona or people who
had attended concerts and who were possibly under the influence of
illegal drugs. The inmates - anyone from shoplifters to murderers -
were part of a drug screening.

"These are individuals that are being entered into the system. They
volunteered to do this and a lot of them come in stoned," Chief
Clement said.

The tests took approximately 45 minutes to an hour to complete. During
the training Constable Legere had to be 100-per-cent accurate.

He is now able to detect illegal drugs from seven categories,
including such drugs as alcohol or prescribed medication, PCP,
inhalants (sniffing glue, gas, toluline), cannabis, cocaine, heroin
and magic mushrooms.