Pleonastic
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2000
- Messages
- 9,428
I heard an interview with a police chief on this morning's radio (3AW), but as yet I can't find an online article.
Essentially police are considering introducing roadside saliva tests to check for drug use, in a similar manner that alcohol tests are currently done. I only caught part of the story so I'm not aware of the specific details - if anyone can find a current online article it'd be much appreciated.
On the whole I think this is a good thing - driving when drug impaired isn't good and should be avoided. My only concern with this will be that there will be a blanket positive or negative result used to convict, regardless of impairment. Because the general community sees drugs as bad, it might be assumed that any drugs in your system will make you a bad driver, even if the effects of the substances have long since worn off (and are thus not actually impairing your driving at all). However there would be all sorts of issues involved in putting a 0.05 style system in place when the substances being tested for are illegal.
It should be interesting to see how this develops...
[ 06 September 2002: Message edited by: Pleonastic ]
Essentially police are considering introducing roadside saliva tests to check for drug use, in a similar manner that alcohol tests are currently done. I only caught part of the story so I'm not aware of the specific details - if anyone can find a current online article it'd be much appreciated.
On the whole I think this is a good thing - driving when drug impaired isn't good and should be avoided. My only concern with this will be that there will be a blanket positive or negative result used to convict, regardless of impairment. Because the general community sees drugs as bad, it might be assumed that any drugs in your system will make you a bad driver, even if the effects of the substances have long since worn off (and are thus not actually impairing your driving at all). However there would be all sorts of issues involved in putting a 0.05 style system in place when the substances being tested for are illegal.
It should be interesting to see how this develops...
[ 06 September 2002: Message edited by: Pleonastic ]