Canadian DRE program hampered by lack of resources

Canada: Catching Drug-impaired Drivers Hampered By Lack Of Resources
Webpage: http://mapinc.org/url/fky7n3u5
Pubdate: Tue, 03 Aug 2010
Source: Edmonton Journal (CN AB)
Copyright: 2010 The Edmonton Journal
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/edmontonjournal/letters.html
Website: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/134
Author: Douglas Quan

CATCHING DRUG-IMPAIRED DRIVERS HAMPERED BY LACK OF RESOURCES

Two years after Ottawa passed a controversial law that gave police new powers to go after drugged-up drivers, opinion is divided over how much of a difference the law has made and whether those police powers can hold up in court.

Under the law, which came into effect in July 2008, an officer who suspects a driver may be impaired by drugs can demand that the driver perform a test of their physical co-ordination. If the driver fails that test, the officer can compel the driver to go to the police station for a lengthier evaluation by a drugrecognition expert.

At the end of that evaluation, the expert can order the driver to submit a blood, urine or saliva sample -- in much the same way police can compel someone suspected of being too boozy to drive to submit a breath sample. Refusal to comply can result in a $1,000 fine.

"It's simply levelled the playing field -- to hold them accountable as we do alcohol-impaired drivers," said Ian Brooks, an acting sergeant with the Edmonton police.

But while drug impaired-driving arrests last year rose to 1,394 from 441 the year before, they still accounted for only a sliver of the 88,630 total impaired-driving arrests, Statistics Canada data show.

Part of the problem, critics say, is that police agencies have been too slow to train officers to become drugrecognition experts. There are now just more than 600 nationwide, with wide variations among Canada's major police forces.

Police in Edmonton and Winnipeg each have 21 drug-recognition experts; Ottawa police have 16; Toronto police have 14; Vancouver police have 10; and Montreal police have two.

Some agencies admit they struggle to have even one expert available per shift. "It's a joke," said Toronto criminal lawyer Jonathan Rosenthal. "They come out with guns blazing -- 'we're coming out hard on crime' -- but if you don't put resources into the system, it's meaningless."

RCMP Sgt. Evan Graham, national co-ordinator of the drug-recognition expert program, acknowledged that the training of officers is a "little behind" where he'd hoped to be at this point, but he said he hopes to add another 200 to 300 experts per year over the next few years.

Training takes two weeks to complete, plus there's another week of field certification, he added.

"It's not overnight."

And while authorities say most drug-impaired driving arrests result in guilty pleas, the few cases that have gone to trial have, in at least a couple of instances, resulted in acquittals -- raising questions, defence lawyers say, about the reliability of the testing.
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