DRUG TESTING DRIVERS MAY BE GIVEN GREEN LIGHT

Police Are To Be Given Power To Crack Down On Drugged Drivers.

Cabinet is expected this week to sign off on tough new rules targeting
drivers who are impaired by cannabis or other illegal drugs.

Indications are that Transport Minister Paul Swain will follow his
counterpart in Victoria, Australia, and make it an offence to drive "while
impaired by a drug".

Police are yet to report back on whether a controversial saliva swab test
being trialled in Victoria can be used effectively at roadside police stops
here.

The plastic-coated swabs have been trialled on about 7000 drivers in
Victoria, and full results are not expected till late next year.

New Zealand police will go to the government this month with an interim
report, commissioned from Britain's Transport Research Laboratory, on how
frontline staff can recognise drugged-up drivers.

There would be three steps to stopping and prosecuting drivers:

* Training police to look for pupil dilation, and coordination tests like
walking a straight line.

* A non-evidential roadside test to pick up traces of methamphetamines and
THC, the active component in cannabis.

* An evidential blood or urine test, that could be admitted in court.

National road policing manager superintendent Steve Fitzgerald said he had
just returned from Canterbury, where three of the 51 road fatalities this
year were thought to have been caused by the methamphetamine 'P'.

The Land Transport Act already says it is an offence to drive under the
influence of a drug to the extent of "being incapable of having proper
control", but the threshold is regarded as so high as to be unenforceable.

The new rule would allow police to judge whether a driver was impaired by
such traditional measures as asking them to walk in a straight line - and
if they seemed impaired, to then commission a saliva or blood test.

Fitzgerald said that if the new lower threshold was approved, police were
ready to train frontline officers and police surgeons.

But the testing has been politically-contentious in Victoria, with
accusations that the law is so flawed, drivers who test positive can get
away without conviction.

Victoria's opposition police spokesman, Kim Wells, says only half of the
drivers who have tested positive have been convicted - that the law allows
them to keep driving.

Victorian Police Minister Andre Haermeyer said 247 of the 495 drivers
charged since 2001 had been convicted, and the roadside testing would
increase that.

Swain's new law is also expected to lower drink-driving limits, toughen
enforcement of speeding, and crack down on recidivist offenders.

Swain is hoping to make a policy announcement this week, so the bill could
be drafted and passed through parliament next year.

United Future has been pushing for such a rule.

And the Greens are expected to be sympathetic as long as all illicit drugs
are treated the same, rather then singling out cannabis.

Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said the Greens were strongly in
favour of taking drivers, impaired by cannabis and other drugs, off the road.

But she said the tests should be neurological ones for impairment - not
simply drug tests that might pick up some drugs, miss others, and miss
other causes of impairment like sleep deprivation.

United transport spokesman Larry Baldock said his caucus would have to
consider the details, but was likely to look favourably on supporting drug
testing.

"There's no point in having a continuing emphasis on drunk driving without
recognising that there are increasingly people driving under the influence
of drugs," he said.

"Reports from coroners and authorities at crash scenes say that this is
happening more and more."