DRUGGED DRIVING LEGISLATION A LAME ATTEMPT TO SELL DECRIMINALIZATION

Editor:

Re: Drug driving already illegal, Herald Opinion, April 29.

The misguided drugged driving bill will not make the roads safer. Police
already have standard impairment tests and field sobriety tests which
should fully function for a test of impairment. Further tools forced
through surreptitiously at the last minute of a lame duck government raises
eyebrows of many.

According to statistics on the MADD Canada Web site www.madd.ca alcohol is
society's "legal, oldest, and most popular drug," "6,507 Canadians died
from alcohol consumption in 1995" and of those the largest number of deaths
resulted from alcohol impairment. This same study showed the number of
deaths in 1995 in Canada from all illicit drugs combined was only 805 and
that doesn't begin to account the fraction of which were impaired driving
related. MADD should focus its efforts where Canadians need it most; the
experience and statistics show alcohol impairment is the real threat to
Canadians. Everyone has a friend or family member whose life has been
devastated by a drunk driver; we don't see the same social experience
reflected of a problem of marijuana impairment and the statistics reflect
this as well.

This legislation shoved through at the last minute to make the
decriminalization bill more palatable to Canadians before an election is a
cynical attempt to bandage up a misconceived approach to our drug laws
which will neither make our streets nor Canadians in general any safer from
what really threatens us.

JODY PRESSMAN

Ottawa, Ont.