POLICE UNPREPARED FOR DRUG-DRIVING LAW

Few officers trained to recognize drug-impaired drivers

Two years after a controversial law gave police new powers to stop
drivers who have been using illicit drugs, most forces still have very
few officers trained to do the job.

Under the federal law, which came into effect in July 2008, an officer
who suspects a driver may be impaired by drugs can demand that the
driver perform a test of their physical co-ordination.

If the driver fails that test, the officer can compel the driver to go
to the police station for a lengthier evaluation by a drug-recognition
expert.

At the end of that evaluation, the expert can order the driver to
submit a blood, urine or saliva sample -- in much the same way police
can compel someone suspected of being too boozy to drive to submit a
breath sample.

Refusal to comply can result in a $1,000 fine.

Drug-impaired-driving arrests last year rose to 1,394 from 441 the
year before. But they still accounted for only a sliver of the 88,630
total impaired-driving arrests, Statistics Canada data show.

Part of the problem, critics say, is that police forces have been too
slow to train officers to become drug-recognition experts.

There are now just more than 600 nationwide, with wide variations
among Canada's major forces.

Ottawa police have 16; Toronto police have 14; Vancouver police have
10; and Montreal police have only two officers trained to recognize
drugs in a driver.

Some agencies admit they struggle to have even one expert available
per shift.

"It's a joke," said Toronto criminal lawyer Jonathan
Rosenthal.

"They come out with guns blazing -- 'we're coming out hard on crime'
- -- but if you don't put resources into the system, it's
meaningless."

RCMP Sgt. Evan Graham, national co-ordinator of the drug-recognition
expert program, acknowledged the training of officers is a "little
behind" where he'd hoped to be at this point, but he said he hopes to
add another 200 to 300 experts per year over the next few years.

Training takes two weeks to complete, plus there's a week of field
certification.

"It's not overnight," Graham said.

And while authorities say most drug-impaired driving arrests result in
guilty pleas, the few cases that have gone to trial have, in at least
a couple instances, resulted in acquittals -- raising questions,
defence lawyers say, about the reliability of the testing.

Earlier this year, an Ontario court heard the case of a man who hit a
mailbox with his car and went off the road in Chatham-Kent.

Police observed the driver had droopy eyes, slow and thick speech and
was unco-ordinated, the court heard. A police drug-recognition expert
concluded the driver was likely impaired by a central nervous system
depressant, which was later confirmed by a urine analysis.

But Ontario Justice Stephen J. Fuerth acquitted the
driver.

The judge said evidence of the driver's impairment was "far from
compelling," and the Crown had failed to show beyond a reasonable
doubt the drug had caused the driver to be impaired at the time he was
driving.

"The hurdle for the Crown in these cases is to relate back the
findings of the evaluation, and the subsequent chemical analysis, to
the time of the driving," the judge said in his decision.

David Maslak, the defence lawyer in that case, said he thinks the
science is just not there to support certain drug-impaired driving
charges.

"I think convictions are going to be few and far between," he said in
an interview.

But police and safety advocates insist the drug-evaluation program is
reliable and has been used with great success for years in the United
States.

"When you're talking sciences, there's not a lot of room for
inaccuracies," said Toronto police Sgt. Tim Burrows. "Reliability (of
the tests) is very high."

In those cases that resulted in acquittals, prosecutors may have
needed to just do a better job of preparing their evidence and calling
the right experts, said Doug Beirness, senior research and policy
analyst at the Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse, which supported
the legislation.

Beirness and other safety advocates say drug-impaired driving has been
ignored for too long and is far more prevalent in society than most
people think.

In 2008, the centre oversaw a roadside survey of 1,500 drivers in
B.C., which found that 8.1 per cent had been drinking and 10.4 per
cent tested positive for drug use. Cannabis and cocaine were the most
common drugs.

While the presence of drugs doesn't necessarily imply impairment, "it
is likely that most drivers who tested positive were affected to some
degree by the substance, thereby increasing the risk of adverse
consequences to themselves and other road users," Beirness wrote in an
article summarizing the findings.

Gregg Thomson, an Ottawa-area board member of Mothers Against Drunk
Driving, said there's no doubt in his mind the new legislation has
made Canadian roads safer.

"We're extremely pleased with the progress so far," said Thomson,
whose son, Stan, was one of five teens killed in 1999 in a
chain-reaction accident caused by a 17-year-old driver who had been
smoking marijuana.

Drivers -- particularly young ones -- have a false perception that
only alcohol can cause impairment, he said. "Education is No. 1. We
have to get the word out."