THE DANGERS OF DRIVING WHILE ON DRUGS

Strathmore Standard -- The Canada Safety Council appeared before the
Standing Committee on Justice Human Rights, Public Safety and
Emergency Preparedness on June 9, to express its concerns about Bill
C-16, which proposes changes to the Criminal Code to address
drug-impaired driving.

The Canada Safety Council president Emile Therien urged the federal
government not to proceed until the necessary groundwork is in place.

"Action is needed now," said Therien, "but the priority must be
public safety and not criminal sanctions. The proposed changes are
premature, and may stand in the way of more effective measures."

The Criminal Code is not the only tool available to deal with
drug-impaired driving. Provincial and territorial traffic codes also
have sanctions for persons suspected of driving while impaired.

For example, police can suspend a driver's licence if any type of
impairment is suspected, taking potentially dangerous drivers off the
road immediately, and give them a strong warning.

"Under section 253 of the criminal code the charge is driving while
your ability to drive a motor vehicle is impaired by alcohol or a
drug," said Cpl. Pattie Neely of the Strathmore RCMP.

"So we do have the authority under that section to charge people for
driving while impaired by a drug."

Of particular interest to the Canada Safety Council is the federal
government's promise of millions of dollars to train police officers
to detect drug impairment.

Therien stresses that the training is urgently needed and urges the
government to proceed with it aside from Bill C-16.

"The problem often is that we have no means of measuring your level
of impairment by drugs," Neely said.

"For example, with alcohol we have our intoxolizer or screening
devices that allow us to determine the concentration of alcohol and
then allows us to make a judgement based on levels of fact.

"With impairment by drug we have to go by indications we see in your
behavior like coordination and symptoms that we see people exhibit
and that's not as easy to prove in court as it is to prove impairment
caused by alcohol."

Roadside breathalysers provide an effective and convenient way for
police to detect and measure the presence of alcohol, however there
is no similar method to test for cannabis.

Testing is complicated by the fact that cannabis can be detected in
the body long after its impairing effects have worn off.

Drug-impaired driving also includes impairment by legal drugs.
Studies have found a significantly higher crash risk in people taking
benzodiazepenes, which are prescribed to combat anxiety and insomnia
among seniors. The impairment may even be higher than that from cannabis.

"We see that (impaired driving) a lot, often inadvertently with
people using prescription drugs and perhaps having one or two
alcoholic drinks in combination with prescription drugs multiplies
their impairment, but it's actually difficult to prove what's causing
the impairment," Neely said.

"The worry for us is not so much the frustrations for the police as
it is the risk that these people pose for the community at large,
because whether you're driving under the influence of drugs or
alcohol if your ability to drive is impaired then you are a risk to the people."