Pot-smoking drivers escape detection

Press, 1 June 1985, Page 5

Pot-smoking drivers escape detection

PA Hamilton Some cannabis-smoking drivers escape detection because traffic officers have no roadside testing method, according to Hamilton’s traffic superintendent, Mr Graeme Lawrence. Officers had to rely on observation, he said. The only way cannabis can be detected at present is through blood samples, analysed by the D.S.I.R. However/ the D.S.I.R. is working on a way to do roadside testing. A few blood samples were taken for the purpose of checking for cannabis, Mr Lawrence said. Most drivers involved were charged for drink-driving offences instead, as cannabis was often used with alcohol, a dangerous mixture. “It is a big problem,” Mr Lawrence said. “There is probably more of it about than we realise, and some drivers must be getting through the net because we have no instrument for testing.” Use of cannabis had grown dramatically over the years. “It is hard for officers to

tell if someone has been smoking rather than drinking,” he said. “They have to go through a process of eliminationtesting for alcohol first. If it is not that it must be drugs.” A D.S.I.R. toxicologist at Lower Hutt, Mr Eric Cairns, agreed that the effect of cannabis on driving was drastic. Cannabis slowed reactions, could cause shortterm loss of memory, and could distort judgment of time and speed. “A driver on cannabis could well consider he is roaring along the highway but in fact only be travelling at 15 to 20km/h,” he said. Cannabis users were often aware of their intoxication and tried to compensate for slow reactions by taking fewer risks and driving slowly. “The real problem comes when cannabis is combined with alcohol,”' Mr Cairns said. “A relatively small amount of alcohol, plus cannabis, will intensify the effects of alcohol so that drivers are likely to drive much faster with much slower reactions.”