DRUGGED DRIVING TEST ISN'T FOOLPROOF

A Cautious Approach On Easing Drug Laws Is Sensible, But Not The Way
It Treats Motorists

Justice Minister Irwin Cotler chose the day before election day in the
U.S. to reintroduce legislation that would make possession of under 15
grams of marijuana no longer a crime. Since U.S. authorities are
violently opposed to the measure, he wanted to bring it back while
American voters were thinking of other things.

Conservative justice spokesman Vic Toews expresses fears that this
will provoke the Americans into imposing retaliatory trade sanctions
on Canadian products -- not that they've been very soft on us while
possession has been a crime all these years.

We don't make laws to please Americans in Canada, or shouldn't. How
far we should go is another question, but it's clear pot-smoking has
become so commonplace that saddling a kid with a criminal record for
having a joint in his or her knapsack is plainly overkill.

It is the profit in trafficking in marijuana that is the main reason
so many Canadians have become convinced that making pot possession
legal, though controlled -- sold through liquor-store type operations
- -- is a way of combatting organized crime. The police, though, don't
agree, and Parliament continues to take a hesitant, part-way approach.

Suddenly making possession of any amount of cannabis no longer a
crime, or making it legal altogether is too big a step to be taking at
this time, for political as well as practical reasons. The new gentler
approach to simple possession, with harsher penalties for trafficking
need to be given a chance -- and the courts should, for a change, deal
as harshly as the law now allows with traffickers and large-scale
cultivators.

But the legislation is not perfect. It contains a section that
purports to crack down on drugged driving. Operating a motor vehicle
while under the influence of drugs is already a crime, but there is no
compulsion for drivers to submit to tests that might indicate they are
drug-impaired.

There's not even an agreed-upon gauge for measuring the degree of
impairment from drugs -- there's nothing like the blood-alcohol limit.
That doesn't deter Cotler or police chiefs or Mothers Against Drunk
Driving or others who think the risk of violating human rights must
take second place to keeping our roads safe: Cotler proposes to make
mandatory drug tests for suspected impaired drivers.

This is no simple test, like the breathalyser test for alcohol.
Drivers suspected of being drug-impaired could be hauled back to the
police station to stand on one foot and jump about. Lights would be
shone in the driver's eye to measure pupil reaction. Blood pressure,
pulse, temperature and muscle tone would be tested.

Somehow, this would tell police what kind of drug might have been
ingested: blood, urine and saliva samples would be taken to "confirm
or refute" the cops' suspicions.

As the Canadian Bar Association has warned the government before, all
this kind of intrusive testing without obtaining a warrant might be
regarded by the courts as a violation of charter rights. There's also
the problem that the samples won't prove someone was driving while
impaired by a drug -- for many of them can be found in the system
weeks after being taken.

This part of the legislation needs to be re-thought. It's an
invitation to police to detain and test drivers whom they suspect
might be drug-impaired mainly because of what they're wearing, because
they have tattoos or parts of their bodies pierced, because they smell
funny or simply because they're teenagers.

The statement by the president of the B.C. Marijuana party, that
drivers go slower and are more cautious on pot, is absurd. But until
there's a way to prove a driver is impaired because of taking a
certain amount of a drug with known effects, we should let police take
suspected drugged drivers off the road for 24 hours without putting
them through an intrusive and expensive process that proves nothing in
the end.