Finding the right balance
ANYONE who has watched one of the many fly-on-the-rear-view-mirror documentaries about traffic police in the UK will know that road-side drug testing is now standard procedure.
A person whose driving has aroused suspicion is stopped, breath tested for alcohol and also tested for drugs with a device that can detect cocaine and cannabis in saliva when wiped across the tongue.
Footage from the show shot from police dash cams often makes a very compelling case why people getting behind the wheel after taking drugs should be as accountable for the danger they pose as those who drink and drive are.
The law was changed in the UK to allow roadside drug tests in 2015.
As reported on page 1 today, the States police are working with colleagues in other government departments on a review of the 70-year-old legislation governing road users.
In part that review has been necessitated, or at least made a priority, because of the legalisation of cannabis for use as a medicine.
As Inspector Callum O’Connor, who heads up the road traffic policing unit with the States force, reveals, officers are now routinely coming across people in vehicles who have been using drugs.
It is a safe bet to presume those drugs will include medicinal cannabis. Just like other medicines, medicinal cannabis comes with a warning to avoid operating machinery while under its influence.
The law needs updating in another related respect. As things stand there is no threshold for the level of drug a person has in their system that would automatically trigger a conviction, as there is with alcohol. That means that although prosecutors can present blood-test results to a court, they also have to show that it was the drugs which caused the impairment actionable under the existing law rather than, for example, simply being tired – and that can be difficult.
Road traffic laws exist, in the main, to keep people safe. It therefore makes absolute sense to review current legislation to ensure that drugs are treated in the same way as alcohol when their use causes a danger.
The next question which arises is what the threshold should be – how much cannabis a person would have to have consumed before being liable to an automatic conviction.
Australia, for example, has taken a hard line, with a zero-tolerance policy that sees people facing fines and banned for three months for a first offence. The penalties get more severe for those who reoffend.
Medicinal cannabis, prescribed by a doctor, was legalised in Australia in 2016.
Evidence regarding the extent of impairment depending on how much has been consumed will inform the answer to the threshold question. And as with alcohol, the right balance will need to be found that will keep people safe without unnecessarily criminalising medicinal cannabis users.
A person whose driving has aroused suspicion is stopped, breath tested for alcohol and also tested for drugs with a device that can detect cocaine and cannabis in saliva when wiped across the tongue.
Footage from the show shot from police dash cams often makes a very compelling case why people getting behind the wheel after taking drugs should be as accountable for the danger they pose as those who drink and drive are.
The law was changed in the UK to allow roadside drug tests in 2015.
As reported on page 1 today, the States police are working with colleagues in other government departments on a review of the 70-year-old legislation governing road users.
In part that review has been necessitated, or at least made a priority, because of the legalisation of cannabis for use as a medicine.
As Inspector Callum O’Connor, who heads up the road traffic policing unit with the States force, reveals, officers are now routinely coming across people in vehicles who have been using drugs.
It is a safe bet to presume those drugs will include medicinal cannabis. Just like other medicines, medicinal cannabis comes with a warning to avoid operating machinery while under its influence.
The law needs updating in another related respect. As things stand there is no threshold for the level of drug a person has in their system that would automatically trigger a conviction, as there is with alcohol. That means that although prosecutors can present blood-test results to a court, they also have to show that it was the drugs which caused the impairment actionable under the existing law rather than, for example, simply being tired – and that can be difficult.
Road traffic laws exist, in the main, to keep people safe. It therefore makes absolute sense to review current legislation to ensure that drugs are treated in the same way as alcohol when their use causes a danger.
The next question which arises is what the threshold should be – how much cannabis a person would have to have consumed before being liable to an automatic conviction.
Australia, for example, has taken a hard line, with a zero-tolerance policy that sees people facing fines and banned for three months for a first offence. The penalties get more severe for those who reoffend.
Medicinal cannabis, prescribed by a doctor, was legalised in Australia in 2016.
Evidence regarding the extent of impairment depending on how much has been consumed will inform the answer to the threshold question. And as with alcohol, the right balance will need to be found that will keep people safe without unnecessarily criminalising medicinal cannabis users.