THE STATE MOUNTS A CAMPAIGN AGAINST DRUGGED DRIVING

Alcohol's not the only thing that impairs drivers

It wasn't so long ago that some drivers swerving down the freeways got away
with a warning and a puzzled look from law officers who thought they were
pulling over a drunken driver.

Many officers were perplexed when they walked up to the car and didn't smell
alcohol on the driver's breath or spot beer cans littering the floor, said
Washington State Patrol trooper Barry Kirk.

"There's no slurred speech. They're not stumbling all over themselves," Kirk
said. "But you know something's wrong."

Just knowing something was amiss wasn't enough, though. If the trooper
couldn't put his finger on the problem, he didn't make an arrest, Kirk said.

Not anymore.

Now officers, deputies and troopers throughout Snohomish County can call a
drug recognition expert, or DRE, to determine what drugs a driver has been
taking. The program that started in Los Angeles in the early 1980s has
finally made its way north. Washington has 90 such experts, six in Snohomish
County.

The program trains state troopers, officers and deputies to be experts in
recognizing the symptoms caused by certain drugs. Each one applies the same
set of standardized tests, including a toxicology analysis. The 4-year-old
program is moving toward the day when those tests and the DRE are accepted
in the court system much the same way field sobriety tests are used as
evidence in a drunken-driving trial.

Drugged driving is just as big an issue as drunken driving, said State
Patrol Sgt. Steve Johnson, a training coordinator for the state's DRE
program.

"Think about it, if drugs affect your body they're going to affect your
driving," Johnson said.

About 18 percent of fatally injured drivers in 1997 had drugs or alcohol, or
both, in their system, Johnson said, quoting national statistics. Forty
percent of injured drivers who weren't killed had used some type of drug
before crashing, he added.

The drug of choice varies from area to area. In Snohomish County it's
methamphetamines, Johnson said. Seattle tends to see more heroin- and
opiate-impaired drivers, he said.

A State Patrol trooper for six years, Harlan Jackson has pulled over plenty
of people whose driving was suspicious. But he said he sometimes lacked the
confidence to arrest them if they didn't have any alcohol on their breath.
Now, as a DRE, Jackson knows when a driver is high and poses a threat to
others.

He's learned something else too. The problem is bigger than just illicit
drugs. About half of the drug-impaired drivers Jackson evaluates are under
the influence of legally prescribed medication. They're upstanding citizens
who have to go to work every day just like the rest of us, he said. But
they're not paying attention to the side effects listed on the warning
labels. And sometimes they unintentionally make the side effects worse by
combining the drugs with a beer or two.

Those are the people Karen and Richard Tarney think they can reach through
their nonprofit organization CANDID, Citizens Against Drug Impaired Drivers.
Johnson recently learned about their organization at a national convention.

The Wisconsin couple started the organization nine years ago after a
drug-impaired driver rear-ended them as they were entering a freeway onramp.

"We're going to get hit," Richard Tarney told his wife as the speeding car
came barreling toward them.

"We looked in our rearview mirror and it was just about airborne," Karen
Tarney said of the car that plowed into them.

The officer at the scene didn't recognize the driver's drug symptoms, but
Richard Tarney did. He talked to DREs who agreed with him that the young
woman who struck their car was probably under the influence of cocaine.
Their suspicions were heightened when the woman died of a drug overdose 11
months later, Karen Tarney said.

In between more than 25 trips out of state for medical care and surgeries to
try to correct Karen Tarney's spinal injury caused by the crash, she and her
husband run CANDID.

"It takes a long time to get the public to know about the issue," Karen
Tarney said. "You just keep plugging away at it."

The Tarneys have established a Web site and attend conventions to raise
awareness and educate the public. Their goals are to establish CANDID
chapters throughout the country and see that every state has a comprehensive
law regarding drug-impaired driving. Washington has no CANDID chapters.

According to the CANDID Web site, state fines for drug-impaired driving
range from $150 to $5,500. Jail time ranges from none to one year.
Washington slaps drug-impaired drivers with a fine of $350 to $5,000 and
anywhere from one day to one year in jail.

Getting drugged-driving cases through the court system can be tough, Jackson
said. Most of the drivers in his cases have pleaded to lesser charges, or
the cases, some of which are several years old, haven't reached any
conclusion. That's why it's important for the program to be recognized by
the courts, Jackson said. A couple of counties are dealing with cases that
might set case law in the matter, he added.

Last fall Snohomish County had a drug-impaired driving case of its own --
with a twist. Prosecutors claimed that a man who struck and killed a
pedestrian was impaired because he was withdrawing from a heroin and cocaine
high. The man's attorney argued that cocaine abstinence syndrome is not
generally accepted in the scientific community and under law can't be the
focus of expert testimony at a criminal trial. The judge concurred and the
case did not go to trial. The man pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of
negligent driving and driving with his license suspended.

Snohomish County's case is different from most of the cases Jackson and his
counterparts hope to get to trial. Instead of dealing with a defendant who
had little or no drugs in his system, they will be presenting evidence
gleaned during the administered tests and backed up by a toxicology report.

All DREs follow the same 12-step testing process, training coordinator
Johnson said. After meeting with the officer who arrested the driver, the
DRE takes the driver to the hospital, police station or jail to conduct the
tests, which include everything from eye exams and pulse rate readings to
checking muscle tone (heroin users tend to have mushy muscles while
methamphetamine and PCP users have rigid, stiff muscles).

The final test is the toxicology sample where blood is drawn and sent to the
State Patrol crime lab for analysis. The results reveal whether the DRE's
opinion was on the mark. So far Washington has an accuracy rate of more than
85 percent, Johnson said.

"The training is such that you have confidence and once you get your first
toxicology report back you build up more confidence," Jackson said.

Right now the DRE is a specialized position. It's too expensive and time
consuming to train every officer. Candidates are put through an intensive
course that includes more than a week of classroom work and tests, followed
by field training. Then the officer's file is reviewed for consideration.
The officers have to be certified every two years and are evaluated twice a
year. They also attend training.

The State Patrol has four DREs in Snohomish County and the sheriff's office
has two. Johnson said the program has a lot of support from law enforcement
agencies throughout the state and is trying to recruit more people.

Last year DREs did more than 350 evaluations. As of June of this year, they
had completed nearly 150, Johnson said.

In the future, Johnson hopes the program will expand to train teachers to
recognize drug problems among their students. Texas is already trying it. If
it's successful it could be six months to a year before it's tested here.

Meanwhile, the Tarneys, strong supporters of the national program, plan to
continue their work and make drug-impaired driving as infamous as drunken
driving. Karen Tarney said she can't figure out why it's taking so long.

"I've been fighting this battle for 10 years. It's still a very well-kept
secret."

SIDEBAR

For more information about the nonprofit organization CANDID, Citizens
Against Drug Impaired Drivers, or to start your own CANDID chapter, check
out its Web site at http://www.candid.org

RELATED INFORMATION

Drug recongition experts look for these symptoms

Drug recognition experts are trained to determine which drugs an impaired
driver may have taken based upon the symptoms shown. The following is a list
of the seven drug categories DREs use and the symptoms they look for.

- - Depressants (alcohol): lack of coordination, disorientation, sluggishness,
slurred speech, drowsiness, droopy eyelids, low pulse rate and blood
pressure.

- - Stimulants (caffeine, cocaine, methamphetamines, other amphetamines):
restlessness, body and eyelid tremors, euphoria, talkativeness, exaggerated
reflexes, high level of anxiety, paranoia, grinding teeth, red nasal area,
runny nose, loss of appetite, insomnia, increased alertness, irritability,
higher pulse and blood pressure, dilated pupils.

- - Hallucinogens (LSD): dazed appearance, hallucinations, nausea, difficulty
speaking, poor time and distance perception, memory loss, dilated pupils,
increased pulse, distorted senses (e.g. drug user sees sounds and smells
colors).

- - PCP (Phencyclidine, a powerful psychedelic drug): lots of perspiring, high
temperature, blank stare, difficulty speaking, elevated pain threshold,
stiff and exaggerated movements, confusion, chemical odors, repetition.

- - Narcotic Analgesics (painkillers): droopy eyelids, drowsiness, raspy
speech, dry mouth, euphoria, fresh puncture marks (or tracks if a longtime
user), nausea, constricted pupils, low blood pressure, temperature and
pulse.

- - Inhalants (almost anything that replaces oxygen with a chemical, such as
household cleaning fluids, nail polish remover, hair spray): drug residue on
nose and mouth, odor of substance inhaled, nausea, bloodshot and watery
eyes, confusion, headaches, higher pulse rate.

- - Cannabis (i.e. marijuana, hash): red eyes, marijuana odor, body tremors,
relaxed inhibitions, increased appetite, higher pulse rate, debris in mouth,
poor time and distance perception.

You can call Herald Writer Rebecca Hover at 425-339-3452 or send e-mail to
hover@heraldnet.com