'Never ever drink and drive’ – the message has been hammered home numerous times now. But there is another phenomenon just below the surface that looks set to be focused on increasingly in the coming months – the problem of so called ‘drug driving’.
A Road Safety Authority spokesperson confirmed to hotpress that the organisation will be mounting a major anti-drug driving campaign later this year. In addition, the government’s recently-released Road Safety Strategy for the years 2007-2012 identifies consideration of the issue of driving under the influence of drugs, and appropriate enforcement options, as key objectives. It’s not just young people using recreational drugs who’ll be targeted – research has shown that older individuals on prescription medication figure significantly when it comes to quantifying the incidence of drug-taking behind the wheel.
Resulting legislation may yet come to be seen as a further attack on civil liberties.
A study published in November of last year by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction cited British research which analysed the results from 166 blood samples taken from drivers suspected of being under the influence of drugs. It found that in 101 out of the 166 cases the drugs found were benzodiazepines or tranquillisers such as Valium. In half these cases the ‘problem’ was compounded by the use of painkillers.
Paul Griffiths, a spokesman for the monitoring centre, observed that the results were backed up by similar studies across Europe. Apparently these showed that drug drivers were more likely to be middle-aged or elderly women who used prescription tranquillisers than young men who had taken cannabis. He offered the opinion that such drugs could double the risk of an accident, yet many drove unaware of the effects.
In Ireland, meanwhile, the Medical Bureau of Road Safety has published the results of a nationwide survey of drug-driving in 2004 in which 2,000 blood and urine specimens were taken from drivers for drug analysis. 1,000 of these were under the limit for alcohol and 1,000 were over. Seven drug classes were examined. The results showed that 331, or 33%, of drivers under the limit tested positive for one or more drugs, while only 142, or 14% of drivers over the limit tested positive. Among the 15.7% tested drivers who were positive for some drug – in a bizarre contradiction of the U.K. evidence – six out of ten gave a positive result for cannabis and of the specimens tested where no alcohol was found to be present, 68% tested positive for one or more drugs.
There is currently no objective test, similar to the breathalyser method, to prove that drivers have drugs in their bloodstream. Forces in Britain have begun developing an ‘impairment’ test to be used to see if a drug driver should be prosecuted, while a statement from the Garda press office on the matter said only that “Gardai receive training in the area as part of their ongoing professional development.”