IMPAIRED DRIVING BILL SET TO RETURN

Proposed federal legislation may make it easier to charge and convict
drivers impaired by marijuana and other drugs.

In early November, federal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler re-introduced
a bill which had died on the order paper when the federal election was
called earlier in the year.

Bill C-16 (previously Bill C-32) would amend the Criminal Code to give
police the authority to demand physicaltests and bodily fluid samples
from drivers suspected of being impaired by any drug, whether
over-the-counter, prescription, illegal or legal, and make it an
offence to refuse such demands.

In the case of a young driver sentenced Monday for dangerous driving
causing the death, blood sample evidence became the subject of a
Charter of Rights challenge, after police obtained analysis results
from B.C. Coroner Marj Paonessa.

Judge William MacDonald ruled that Paonessa had authority under the
Coroners Act when she obtained a blood sample from a government
toxicology lab technician. The judge did not rule on whether a coroner
can demand a blood sample from a driver, because the sample was taken
for medical purposes, by a Langley Memorial Hospital emergency room
doctor.

Paonessa had been at the accident scene when a quantity of marijuana
was found on the body of Dayton Unger, 16, who died with Simon
Featherston, also 16, in the crash in Aldergrove in April, 2002.

Currently police have no authority - as they do with alcohol
impairment - to demand a blood sample, even if they suspect impairment
by marijuana.

The judge said the coroner had a "public duty" to give analysis
results to the police. But in the main trial, MacDonald found the
blood sample wanting. The continuity of the sample was in doubt, after
an LMH lab assistant's testimony did not coincide with the other
witnesses who had handled the blood sample. MacDonald had "reasonable
doubt" that the young offender's ability to drive was impaired.