WHEN HIGH DRIVERS CRASH

Critics Sound the Alarm About Study of Stoned Motorists. Researchers
Say There'S No Problem

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association has raised serious concerns on
behalf of 3,000 injured B.C. drivers whose blood will be tested for
marijuana without their knowledge for a $1-million study on drugs and
driving.

In a marijuana-impairment study announced last month, excess blood
that is drawn in the course of treating injuries will be analyzed. The
blood is collected anonymously and not used in relation to criminal
charges.

However, BCCLA policy director Micheal Vonn questions how such data
can be rendered anonymous, as assured by researchers who have met
waiver of consent standards of major research organizations and had
the approval of each of the five hospitals involved, including Nanaimo
Regional.

"I would be interested to know how the toxicology results become
incapable of being traced," she said. "If the study is to examine the
relationship between drugimpairment and automobile accidents, then you
have to link the two somehow. If the master list is destroyed before
the blood is analyzed, then presumably they are coding it somehow,
because they need to know what they are analyzing."

She is also concerned that patients worrying that blood-test results
might lead to criminal charges, however remote, may contravene the "do
no harm" underpinning of all ethical research.

The Canadian Institute of Health Research, which is funding the study,
the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and
the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada have all
signed off that ethical standards have been met.

Vonn contends the issue is not that the study meets with ethical
approval -- "the issue is what was approved."

The study will analyze patients' blood "taken in relation to treatment
for injuries" and will not be connected to criminal charges, insists
co-investigator Scott Macdonald, a population health expert at the
Centre for Addictions Research of B.C. at the University of Victoria.
"All data is completely anonymized [i.e. the master list to link
samples is destroyed] before blood is analyzed and toxicology results
are not shared by police -- in fact, our methods ensure that toxicology
results cannot be traced back to the driver [not even by the
investigators]," he said.

The study is aimed at defining whether drivers high on pot cause more
accidents than sober drivers and that requires thousands of tests to
get a representative sample of drivers.

If pot smokers in car accidents were asked for consent, they'd likely
refuse requests for blood samples, skewing the necessary random aspect
of the massive study, Macdonald said. "The steps taken to ensure
anonymity are unlikely to adversely affect the welfare of the subjects."

"No one is suggesting that the researchers are voluntarily sharing the
toxicology results with police -- such an action would be an
already-established breach of charter rights of the patient," Vonn
added. "The question is police getting a warrant later." She can't
understand how it could be determined that a driver caused an accident
"without a linkage to the police report."

The issue highlights the balance between the individual right to
informed consent and the public interest of keeping roads safe from
drivers under the influence of drugs.

"There's never been a good study," Macdonald said. "It's got to be
blood."

Blood tests are necessary to reveal the potency of any THC -- the
active ingredient in marijuana -- while urine tests detect merely the
presence of pot in the system, even if smoked a month prior, he
pointed out. Saliva tests indicate pot smoked in the previous 34
hours. "Neither approach can show impairment or amount of drug used,"
he says.

It's crucial information for authorities aiming at "an effective
road-safety policy targeting cannabis-impaired driving," says the
study's lead investigator Dr. Jeffrey Brubacher in the latest issue of
the B.C. Medical Journal.

The rate of cannabis use by B.C. drivers is "particularly high,"
Brubacher writes.

A 2008 survey of the Island and Lower Mainland found that 8.1 per cent
of drivers had been drinking and 10.4 per cent tested positive for
drugs -- including 4.6 per cent for cannabis.

"However, many cannabis users believe it does not impair their driving
ability," Brubacher adds, even though he says the evidence is clear
that pot, like alcohol, slows reaction time and impairs staying within
lanes or monitoring speed. Unlike alcohol, pot does not affect complex
functions such as interpretation and anticipation of traffic patterns,
he adds.

B.C. Coroners statistics from 2008 show 133 vehicle deaths, with
alcohol involved in 76 of them, drugs in 19 and a combination of them
in 38. But pot pales beside the vehicle deaths caused by alcohol,
Macdonald stresses. "Alcohol is by far the worst drug on the road."
Currently, there are roughly two immediate roadside suspensions per
month in Greater Victoria related to drug impairment, compared to at
least five times that many roadside suspensions for alcohol, says
Const. Bill Roberts of the Victoria Police Department.

Roberts, provincial co-ordinator for the drug evaluation
classification program, welcomes the study, saying it will give police
and the community a better understanding of the increasing challenge
of drugs when it comes to impaired driving. "We're finding it more and
more prevalent."