GROUP WANTS POT TESTS FOR LOADED DRIVERS

Scientist Says That's Not So Easy

The federal government shouldn't push ahead with plans to
decriminalize pot until cops have a way to detect and charge stoned
drivers, an anti-drunk-driving group warned yesterday.

There's one problem with that, says a University of Toronto scientist:
the only truly reliable test for marijuana impairment requires a
sample of the stoner's brain.

"If you want to get the amount of marijuana that's affecting
behaviour, you really need a sample from the brain, and you'll not get
a lot of co-operation for that," Dr. Alison Smiley said yesterday.

Smiley, who has conducted numerous field experiments on the effects of
things like shiftwork, medical conditions, alcohol and drugs on human
performance, published a paper in 1999 concluding weed-stoned drivers
are impaired, but they drive more carefully as a result.

"When you look at crash responsibility studies, you don't see a big
increase in the likelihood of being responsible for a crash when
you've been consuming marijuana," she said.

A Dutch study for the U.S. Department of Transportation in 1993
administered driving tests to stoned and drunk drivers in a series of
controlled experiments. The pot smokers all passed.

At a joint press conference in Ottawa yesterday, Mothers Against Drunk
Driving, the Canadian Professional Police Association and the Canadian
Association of Chiefs of Police urged the government to give police
more authority to detect and charge impaired drivers before drug
possession laws are relaxed.

"It is a recipe for trouble on our roads, and MPs need to delay this
bill until the proper public safeguards are in place," said MADD
national director Andrew Murie.

Police can pinpoint a driver's alcohol level, but there's no roadside
reefer-screening device.

Acting Sgt. Conrad Moschansky, the only Edmonton city cop trained in
"drug recognition," administers a 45-minute series of interviews and
physical tests on drivers suspected of pot impairment.

"It's getting very common. We're seeing it at checkstops all the
time," Moschansky said yesterday.

His work is hampered because there's no legislation allowing him to
compel suspected stoners to submit to the tests, he said.