SMOKING DOPE AND DRIVING BOUND TO GET YOU BURNED

Life is about to become a little more difficult for those who think
it is a good idea to drive after smoking pot in Saugeen Shores.

Constable Chris Shaidle of the Saugeen Shores Police Service has
recently received his certification as a Drug Recognition Expert
through the Ontario Police College after completing a three-week
course of both in-class and hands-on learning.

Under Bill C-2, a series of modifications to the Canadian Criminal
Code which came into effect July 2 of last year, police officers at a
traffic stop can demand a driver submit to drug testing if they
suspect impairment. Shaidle said the grounds for suspicion are nearly
identical to suspicion of drunk driving.

"Our officers arrest people on reasonable grounds that they have
alcohol in their system, so much so that they are impaired or over
the legal limit," he said, explaining officers will notice signs of
impairment, such as the smell of alcohol or slurred speech. "For this
potion of it, the officer's observations and reasonable grounds are
still there... but now they're looking at 'well, I don't smell
alcohol, but this person is impaired.'"

Shaidle would then be called in to act as what he calls a "human
intoxilizer," going through a maximum 168 point evaluation system to
determine the level of and what caused the impairment in an individual.

"Under the legislation, if someone doesn't blow over 80, we can't
charge them with the blow over 80 offence but we can charge them with
the impaired offence," he said. "I can come in and do an evaluation
and say 'this person was using this kind of a drug' clear-cut and a
charge can be made."

Shaidle is one of only 121 officers in Ontario to receive this
qualification so far, and the only one in a stretch of the province
expanding south of Bruce County to Chatham-Kent and easterly over to
Peel Region.

After completing a two week in-class course at Ontario Police
College, Shaidle and his classmates were sent to Phoenix Arizona
where they spent two full days in the Maricopa County Jail, putting
the skills they had learned in class to practice. The first day in
the jail lasted from 11:30 a.m. until 3 a.m. the next day.

After each of his nine cases that day Shaidle had to complete a
report identical to the evaluation he would be completing on a
suspected impaired driver in Ontario. His instructor would then
review his findings, comparing them to the actual urine test to
determine if Shaidle's diagnosis was correct. He was right every time.

Having an officer with his kind of qualifications will be
advantageous to the community, Shaidle believes.

"We have a lot of impaired driving in this community for whatever the
reason may be," Shaidle said. "This program is designed for to catch
those people who may not be high in the alcohol category, but high in
the impairment category."