Drug tests starting for drivers

By JAMES GARDINER

Drug testing of drivers will start next week with specially trained police stationed at drink-driving checkpoints.

The testing will initially be voluntary, but police are counting on the overconfidence or irrationality of drug users for compliance.

Drivers who pass the alcohol breath test but are thought to be impaired will be asked to undergo a series of tests including walking a straight line, standing on one leg, holding their heads back and touching their noses, and closing their eyes and estimating when 30 seconds have elapsed.

Police are confident, based on a similar programme in Britain, that most people will volunteer even though they risk being charged with driving under the influence of drugs if they fail.

Whether the charges will stick will be another matter. Police will not rely on blood or urine tests because no reliable tests exist to prove impairment.

Britain conducted voluntary tests for five years before a law change this year made the testing compulsory.

In the UK only 3 to 4 per cent of drivers asked to undergo the tests refused, said New Zealand road policing manager Superintendent Steve Fitzgerald.

Yet 38 per cent of those who agreed to be tested failed.

"I suppose you can then work on the basis that people who are impaired certainly don't make rational decisions," he said.

Britain's national drug recognition training officer Steve Collier has spent the past three weeks training 30 New Zealand police officers in how to spot drug-impaired drivers.

He said drivers were often keen to perform the tests because they had seen them on television "and they want to have a go".

It had taken each officer three days to learn how to conduct the tests, which also included inspecting drivers' eyes to see if they were flickering uncontrollably - a sign of depressants (including alcohol), inhalants or phencyclidine (pcp) - or if their pupils were smaller or larger than normal.

Mr Collier said the "divided attention tests" were devised because driving was a divided attention task.

Mr Fitzgerald said that if a test were failed, the next step would be to get a doctor to assess the driver and to provide an opinion on whether he or she was impaired to the point of being unable to drive safely.

The doctor's evidence and that of the police officer conducting the tests, which would be videotaped, would be presented to the court in a prosecution.

Asked whether such subjective tests and the opinions of doctors and police about impairment levels and their cause would be enough to gain convictions, he said not necessarily.

"It's a matter of building up your expertise and actually proving it in court, and that's part of the reason we're having trained officers."

Mr Fitzgerald said that training medical practitioners in assessing drug impairment would be the next step.

The National Organisation for Reform of Marijuana Laws (Norml) says the drug testing would unfairly target cannabis users.

President Chris Fowlie said smokers should refuse to undergo the voluntary tests on principle because they were subjective rather than objective and because police who were potentially biased against cannabis users would be conducting them.

"This is not about safety," Mr Fowlie said. "Does the moderate use of cannabis cause impairment? The research says it doesn't. In fact it can make you a safer driver because you are less likely to take risks."


The requirements

Drivers will be asked to:

* Walk in a straight line.

* Stand on one leg.

* Hold their heads back and touch their noses.

* Close their eyes and estimate 30 seconds.