ALCOHOL 'REMAINS MOST PROBLEMATIC DRUG' ON ROAD: QUEBEC STUDY

The use of marijuana, cocaine or tranquilizers increases a driver's chance
of being in a fatal crash but nowhere near as much as drinking does, a
Quebec study indicates.

"Alcohol remains the No. 1 problematic drug," civil servant Claude Dussault
said yesterday at a convention of about 44 experts on drinking and driving
from 22 countries.

He was providing preliminary reports based on analysis of blood and urine
samples from the remains of 482 drivers killed in traffic accidents in
Quebec between April 1999 (when Quebec began taking such samples routinely)
and last November.

Results were compared with breath, urine and saliva samples from 5,931
drivers stopped randomly across the province.

Researchers found that cocaine alone turned up 4.9 times more frequently in
samples from the dead drivers than in those from the random group, cannabis
2.2 times as often and benzodiazepines (tranquilizers) 2.5 times as often.

These figures were far below the rates for blood alcohol over the 0.08 per
cent legal limit, 39.2 times as frequent among the killed drivers.

Aside from the fact that the results are only preliminary, there are other
reasons to treat the findings with caution, said Maxime Brault, a member of
the team that carried out the study for the Quebec auto insurance board.

For one thing, the other drugs, unlike alcohol, remain detectable for weeks
after consumption, long after they would be likely to affect driving ability.