BUSTING DOPED-UP DRIVERS

IN HIS role as co-ordinator of Nova Scotia's 33 drug recognition
experts, Const. Scott MacDonald of the Halifax Regional Police
sometimes takes trainees to rock concerts in Halifax.

They don't go for the music, though.

They go - after first getting permission from the concert hall and
music promoter - to find people under the influence of drugs. "It may
be a target-rich environment," he said in a recent interview.

Const. MacDonald said that police can't be named experts until
they've completed a standard 10-day field-sobriety and
drug-recognition course, scored 80 per cent or higher on a number of
exams and correctly assessed if at least eight of 12 test subjects
are either high on drugs or sober.

So the officers go to concerts and seek volunteers. They don't wear
uniforms or carry weapons. They don't ask for the names of the
volunteers but do ensure they won't be driving.

Volunteers give up about half an hour of their time to go through a
12-step procedure to see if they are on drugs and are later asked to
indicate their level of sobriety and provide a urine sample. Details
of the test are available at
www.justice.gc.ca/eng/news-nouv/fs-fi/2004/doc_31166.html.

Halifax Regional Police has 17 drug recognition experts and the rest
are members of the RCMP who work throughout the province. If an
untrained officer suspects a driver has been using drugs, he or she
will call in an expert to conduct the test.

The expert may then be asked to provide their opinion in court.

Const. MacDonald spoke to The Chronicle Herald recently about his work.

Q: What do you say to chronic pot smokers who think being high
doesn't affect their driving ability?

A: All drugs have a psychoactive effect. And typically with driving,
it affects their ability to divide their attention. Cannabis or
marijuana is the same. Given that you have to steer a vehicle, adjust
to a changing environment and accelerate, (there are) small motor
skill issues. It's going to definitely have an effect on your driving
and it's not going to be for the better.

Q: Why do you ask some of the people you're examining to cross their eyes?

A: An ability to converge your pupils can be done by, generally, 65
per cent of the population. Some types of drugs will affect you in
that you'll lose your ability to converge once you've consumed
particular amounts of that drug.

Q: Your expertise gives you an opinion if someone is using drugs, but
the old breathalyzer-style tests provide concrete numbers. Do your
opinions hold up in court as well?

A: In court, police officers cannot give opinion evidence, despite
the fact that they may deal with impaired drivers on an ongoing basis.

There's not more weight put on that police officer than anyone else
who may be a witness.

A drug recognition expert is a different type of witness.

Their credentials and their training and their experience and
knowledge are provided to defence counsel long before the trial
begins, as is the information that they're going to speak of. This
allows the . . . judge to possibly put more weight on the information
that might be provided by the expert.

Q: Why do you think Nova Scotia has the second most drug-impaired
charges (24; Ontario has more) of any Canadian province since the
laws changed last July 2, when officers were permitted to demand that
a driver undergo drug-impaired tests?

A: I believe it's because we've been involved in this (testing)
program longer than most provinces.

Per capita, we have a larger number of experts who can provide this
resource to front-line officers and, from that, our front-line
officers have become more knowledgeable in how to identify people who
are impaired by drugs.

Q: Drunk drivers may swerve or have other common characteristics. Is
there anything different that's a telltale sign of a drug-impaired driver?

A: It's mostly dependent on the type of drug. Stimulants could
manifest themselves in high speeds, quick movements, hyperactivity.
Some of the depressants . . . (could be) quite the opposite. They'll
be very drowsy, very slow. They all differ, which are some of the
reasons we're able to identify which category of drugs that they're
on. They do vary slightly. The common denominator is that they can't
drive very well.