John Williamson: Roadside drug testing important new tool for police

Road policing will be back to normal soon and officers will have a new tool in their kit from next year - roadside saliva tests for drugs.

By John Williamson

Northern Advocate columnist

OPINION

Our granddaughter caught Covid last week. She came home from school and disappeared. She had taken herself straight to bed.

Her parents had RAT testing equipment and she had a weak positive. Ringing around close contacts revealed that quite a number in her class has tested positive.

So this 7-year-old is self isolating in her room, getting a bit frustrated, still testing positive but recovering well. Last year this would have been cause for real health concern, but now it seems, it is just part of the pathway back to the new normality.

But what will this new normal look like on our roads as our police, who have been deflected into road blocks and protest control, look back to their budgets and re-establish their priorities?

In this context, this last month has seen the passing into legislation of the Drug Driving Amendment Bill. This will allow the police to randomly test oral fluids at the roadside for any of 25 drugs, both legal and illegal, which may be present in the driver's system while they are behind the wheel.

The aim is to deter people from driving under the influence of drugs and it is important to note that this is an infringement penalty, not a criminal offence.

The issue of drugged driving has long been on the legislative agenda. Police have been conscious obviously impaired drivers, who pass the booze bus breath test, are not having their keys taken.

The process of "Cause to Suspect" where impaired drivers need to walk the line, stand on one leg and touch their nose is far too time consuming. The breath test for alcohol, on the other hand, has been quick and easy and gets those impaired drivers off the road.

Random breath testing was introduced to New Zealand in 1993. It allowed compulsory breath testing at roadside checkpoints, and random breath testing where a driver is pulled over by the police.

Police did not need to suspect a driver is affected by alcohol before testing. Random roadside alcohol testing halved the fatalities from drunk driving over the next five years. It also provided a highly visible police presence with regards to all criminal activity, as the front line in reducing harm from drunk driving.

The saliva test for the presence of drugs in the driver's system has been operating in Australia since 2007.

Positive roadside tests most commonly reveal methamphetamine, associated with males aged 30-39, and 20 per cent of random roadside tests detect a positive result.

In New Zealand we have had questions raised about whether the testing for drugs in saliva is justifiable from a human rights perspective, what level of presence creates impairment, as well as the reliability of the tests.

To me that's just quibbling over semantics. The fact that, in 2020, of 318 people who died on our roads 101 of them had drugs in their system, that's 30 per cent, should speak for itself.

Drugged driving in New Zealand is a significant issue and random roadside testing is an essential tool for making our roads safer. The actual test has not yet been finalised and the legislation won't be operative until next year, but it will great to see the police have this extra tool to make our roads safer.

But dealing with drugged driving is not just about getting drugged drivers off the road.

We also need to work on their not getting behind the wheel in the first place. In this context Northland Road Safety Trust has developed a programme to help offenders deal with this issue.

The course is Drug Impaired Driving (DID). It gives referred participants the opportunity to look at the risks to themselves and their families of drugged driving, identify the high risk situations and decision processes that place them at risk, and develop strategies to reduce that risk. Referrals come from multiple sources where the risk of drugged driving is identified.

It will be great to get our police back into the real work of keeping our communities and roads safe, and random roadside drug testing is a tool to help effect that.