Police Minister Simon Corbell has announced a ramp up of officers trained to perform roadside drug testing.
Mr Corbell said that the new team would provide the community with multi-skilled police officers specifically trained to target and remove high risk takers from our roads.
“The new team combines the RAPID (Recognition and Analysis of Plates Identified) and the six-month-old Random Roadside Drug Testing (RRDT) team — increasing the number of officers able and trained to conduct random roadside drug testing from two to nine,” he said.
Since ACT Policing began operating random roadside drug testing in May 2011, more than 300 drug tests have been conducted with ten returning positive roadside tests. Of the ten, two have been charged and convicted.
“The initial months focused on establishing robust governance, training and developing operational requirements, including the purchase of drug kits and other equipment,” Mr Corbell said.
“The Road Safety Operations team is now in place to expand our road safety efforts. The public can expect to see the team out and about, setting up roadside operations targeting drink driving, drug driving and unregistered/unlicensed drivers — a multipronged approach to improving road safety.”
The mouth swabs are looking for weed, ice, and ecstasy.
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What’s Your opinion?
Simon recruiting more roadside drug testers
its something we dont need its a huge waste of money f*** the police
Cannabis will show up in your blood stream up to 3-5 days after smoking it, longer if you are a heavy user. I have no problem with getting intoxicated people off the road, and banning them from driving for driving under the influence. I have big issues with banning people for driving while not under the influence.
http://www.ohsinc.com/how_long_do_drugs_stay_in_your_system.htm
http://www.cocaine.org/drugtestfaq/index.html
Cheap said :
Unfortunatley, your argument does not fit in with the ‘all drugs are bad’ mantra peddled by the ignorant.
MJay said :
Your first point – doesn’t that mean that there should be a 0 alcohol limit for all drivers? And for your second: the point isn’t that the drugs may be illegal. It isn’t illegal to be under the effects of illegal drugs. The point is that the government thinks that there is a safe level of intoxication for alcohol but not other drugs.
about time! will discourage any drug use when driving! making the roads safer!
hopefully they put as much effort into this as their point to point cameras! :/
KeenGolfer said :
Yes I thought that might be the case but my impression from the wording of the release was that they only charged 2 out of the 10 and convicted those 2!
OpenYourMind said :
Yes.
aronde said :
It’s not hard to work out. Only 2 have had their day in court so far. The other 8 will have their turn in the coming months.
Cheap said :
Drugs are going to affect everyone differently though, so even though two people may have had only had a small amount of the drug the differences in their coordination, alertness etc are potentially going to be very different.
Secondly, how is there a double standard? There are different rules governing the use/consumption/production etc of alcohol and other drugs. So two different sets of laws for them seems perfectly reasonable too me.
Okay my previous post needs clarification as it looks like I’m pretty much contradicting myself.
The first point is basically saying that some classes of drugs (e.g stimulants) don’t impair driving ability as much as others. Just food for thought, not necessarily saying that any changes need to be made.
The second is saying that as it stands NOW, there is an *incorrect* double standard. You can have some alcohol (a depressant) but you can’t have any marijuana (another depressant).
The funny thing is that your performance behind the wheel actually improves with the use of amphetamines. It has the exact opposite effect of alcohol – rather than depressing the nervous system, it stimulates it, improving reaction times and alertness. The US Air Force even gives amphetamines to its pilots on long missions for this very reason.
I’m not saying that everyone should go out and smoke some fat shards before driving, because obviously there is a point where your driving actually is impaired, I just don’t think it should be open for more debate, rather than simply outlawed on a knee-jerk reaction.
I also think that there should be a threshold for what is considered drug driving – if the government accepts that low levels of marijuana or other drugs don’t significantly alter driving (in the same way that it does with alcohol), then there should be no penalty for low range drug driving. And if the government accepts that there is a safe limit but can’t find a way of determining how intoxicated you are, then the system is flawed and should be scrapped.
So my two points are:
1. Not all drugs are the same when it comes to motor control and judgement, so they should be held to different standards
2. There shouldn’t be a double standard when it comes to safe levels of intoxication
Good. Nice to see the government doing something sensible for once, credit where it’s due.
I am curious how 10 positive tests can result in only 2 convictions? Were the other 8 false positives? If so that is one heck of an unreliable test!
angrymotorist1 said :
Does that include all those on all sorts of legal prescribed medications that make a vehicle equally unsafe to operate.
Good. The more drugged up losers we can get off our roads the better.