DRUG TESTING TOO INTRUSIVE

Government officials are right to be concerned about Canadians driving
while high on drugs. Although the effects of substances like pot on people
behind the wheel might not be the same as that of alcohol, most of us
accept that drugs can impair the ability of people to drive safely.

But the federal government is reported to be considering laws that would
give police the power to conduct roadside checks for drug use, starting
with an assessment of physiological symptoms displayed by drivers and
ending up with more intrusive tests requiring samples of bodily fluids.

Blowing into a breathalyser seems a simple way of testing impairment due to
alcohol. It doesn't do for detecting the presence of drugs, though, so the
feds are thrown back on tests that would require drivers to surrender
samples of saliva, sweat or urine at the roadside, and even blood at the
station.

The thought of cops jamming swabs into our mouths and under our arms, or
holding a flashlight on us while we give them a urine sample, isn't a
pleasant one.

Neither is the idea of police jabbing needles into us at the station on the
suspicion that we've been smoking too much of a substance that the
government has recently decided should no longer be a crime to smoke.

The proposal to give police these powers is the more disturbing given the
fact that it will tell them nothing that might be of use in court. As a
federal discussion paper on the subject says, the level of alcohol in the
blood can indicate impairment.

But it acknowledges that the presence of some drugs in certain bodily
fluids "may simply indicate drug use many days, or even months, in the past."

So, while the law can set legal limits on the amount of alcohol in the
blood, it can't set limits on drug content. So what would be the point of
all the testing, apart from general nuisance?

As the Justice Department notes in the discussion paper, mandatory testing
could violate our constitutional freedoms: testing for drugs, unlike
testing for alcohol, would take a long time.

The proposals would also require suspected drug-impaired drivers to provide
what might be incriminating evidence against themselves.

The government is even considering penalties for drivers who balk at
submitting samples of saliva, sweat, urine and blood for tests that are
unreliable indications of impairment.

This proposal should not get anywhere until someone comes up with a
reliable test for drug impairment.