OFFICERS LEARN TO DETECT DRIVERS DRUNK ON DRUGS

Prescriptions for anti-anxiety medications are written for tens of
millions of Americans each year. But when those Americans combine
their prescriptions with a beer or two and try to drive home, they
are probably driving impaired.

So say drug recognition experts, or DREs for short, from the St.
Charles County Sheriff's Department. The only two such experts in the
county, deputies Travis Jones and Bob Minaeff, say that in the past,
such drivers were sent home if a breath test showed them under the
legal limit of 0.08 for blood-alcohol content.

But now police officers are being trained to spot impairment caused
by drugs to keep these equally dangerous drivers off the road.

About 30 law enforcement officials from the Missouri Highway Patrol
and various municipalities in St. Louis, St. Charles, Jefferson and
Lincoln counties are attending an 80-hour course that will help them
to get the evidence needed to arrest and convict drugged drivers. The
two-week school is being hosted by the St. Charles County Sheriff's
Department at its training range facility on Highway 94, south of
Highway 40.

Last year, Minaeff and Jones were responsible for about 10 percent of
the nearly 900 arrests St. Charles County made for DWI. But they
believe that the same number of motorists drive intoxicated on drugs
as on alcohol, so they expect their narcotic arrests to increase
dramatically as more DREs are trained.

"The mind-set out there is that the DWI charge is just for alcohol
consumption," Jones said. "I can't tell you how many people we arrest
who say, 'All I've been doing is smoking marijuana.'"

The deputies have even seen chronic DWI offenders who circumvent
their car's ignition interlock devices - designed to prevent the car
from starting if alcohol is detected - by getting their high on a
cocktail of drugs instead.

Troopers, deputies and officers taking the class are taught not only
to detect whether a person is under the influence of drugs but also
to categorize the type of drug the person is using. Through a
specific checklist of 12 observations and tests, DREs are able to
determine whether the driver is on depressants, stimulants,
hallucinogens, narcotic analgesics, inhalants, PCPs or cannabis.

Jones said that DREs can also rule out medical conditions like
diabetes or epilepsy for a motorist's seemingly intoxicated behavior.

And the majority of the time, DREs' diagnoses are backed up by a
blood or urine test. Jones said that the accuracy rate nationwide is
between 93 and 95 percent.

Their testimony in a trial on a DWI charge is weighed more heavily, too.

Jones said the possibilities for use of DREs in law enforcement is
expected to expand greatly in coming years. For instance, the experts
may be called in to evaluate murder suspects to determine whether
they are under the influence of drugs. School resource officers may
also be trained so they can spot high school students who are coming
to school intoxicated or high on drugs.

"The abuse is out there," Jones said. "That's why we're training them
to go out and get it."