Pass the policeman 'pon the left hand side

I’m back from holidays now so it’s time for you all to get back into some hard hitting, insightful Australian commentary, or, failing that, this blog.

Today’s topic is Drug Driving. No, I’m not talking about driving to get drugs; I’m talking about driving under the influence of drugs. The reason that you may have heard of this recently is that here in Queensland the police have just been given the equipment to test drivers for marijuana, ecstasy and amphetamines as well as new legislation to charge them under. Similar legislation has been at work in Victoria, South Australia and possibly some other states for some time now.

Now most people would probably think that testing the person operating a fast moving, two tonne block of steel for mind-altering drugs would be a good thing, and I was initially inclined to agree, but as usual, the devil is in the detail.

The great flaw in this plan is a little phrase that tough-on-whatever politicians love to throw around, ‘Zero Tolerance’. In terms of Drug Driving this means that they are not testing drivers to see if they are under the influence of illegal drugs, they are testing to see if the driver has any illegal drugs in their system, even if it is not affecting them in any way. Here it is straight from the police horse’s mouth, from the drug driving fact sheet.

What level of drugs can be detected without penalty?

"There will be zero tolerance. Any trace of the nominated drugs in your system and you can be penalised. "

This would probably be more acceptable if it were not for the total lack of information about how long these illegal drugs stay in a person’s system. From the same pamphlet:

How long after consuming illegal drugs can they be detected?

"The detection period for the active ingredient in the relevant drug varies depending on factors such as the quantity and quality of the drug that has been ingested, the frequency of use of the drug and the period of time since taking the drug."

That is surely the most useless paragraph ever written. Are they talking hours, days, weeks? Could you imagine if the Drink Driving laws were this vague? It would be funny were it not describing a real offence you or I could be charged with.

Well actually, not you or I, just people who take illegal drugs, but the fact that this concerns drug users is beside the point. This is a poorly executed law that, while detecting and punishing some people for driving in a dangerous state, will also punishing people for doing something that is not dangerous to anyone. We should be asking ourselves whether this is an acceptable side effect.

If they had a test that detected if a person was high on a certain drug then I would have absolutely no objection to these laws. Make it just like alcohol. Determine a concentration of the drug that is likely to cause a level of intoxication in most people and use that as a threshold. Perfect. You’d catch the dangerous drivers and we could all sleep easier. But charging someone who smoked a joint the night before with the same offence as someone who moments ago injected crystal-meth into their eye-balls just seems, well, crazier than someone who has just injected crystal-meth into their eye-balls.

Now I don’t want to come across as pro-drugs here, I want to come across as anti-bad laws. If we want to punish people for taking drugs then charge them with exactly that. There are probably laws for just that already, but they are certainly not in the traffic act.

Ok, maybe I’m being a little too objectionist here, and maybe objectionist is not a word, but what is a word is duty and it’s our duty to question new laws, especially new laws that involve emotionally charged topics like illegal drugs and our shockingly high road toll. It seems that no one except the pro-pot groups are questioning these laws, and they are not exactly known for their persistence.

I could be wrong. Maybe these laws will save thousands of lives every year. Maybe the thresholds for detection are perfectly aligned with ‘highness’ and they will only catch actual drug drivers. I personally reckon they will catch quite a few dangerous drivers, but in the process also financially cripple a whole bunch of innocent people (with respect to DUI) who can’t afford the $1050 fine.

Will it be worth it? Maybe yes, maybe no, but we should at least be asking the question.