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Drug drivers may think that just because they pass a test for alcohol they will be off the hook. This is not the case because the police can also prosecute a driver who is unfit through drugs and there are various ways they can detect and prove the offence.

Government to establish expert panel on drug driving
Publisher: Department for Transport
Published date: 4 January 2012

The Department for Transport is establishing an expert panel to consider the technical aspects of introducing a new offence of driving with an illegal drug in your body.

Road Safety Minister Mike Penning said:

The Department's response to the North review made it clear that driving while impaired by drugs is as important an issue as drink-driving. It is now relatively easy to enforce the law against drink-driving, while the equally serious driving whilst impaired by drugs is more difficult to deal with effectively.

The Department said that it would examine the case for a new specific drug driving offence - alongside the existing one - which would relieve the need for the police to prove impairment case-by-case where a specified drug had been detected.

That is why the Department is putting together a panel of experts to give advice on the technical aspects of introducing a new offence of driving with an illegal drug in your body. The panel will look at how such an offence could be defined as well as considering whether it is possible to set levels for the impairing effects of specific drugs.

The panel's terms of reference are under development and are likely to be finalised when the panel has been fully assembled and starts work. This is expected to be in the Spring.

It is likely that the panel will consider whether it is possible to identify, for average members of the adult population, the levels of drugs that have an impairing effect broadly equivalent to the current blood alcohol level. They will consider this effect for a number of drugs including cocaine, MDMA, cannabis, and opiates.

In cases where such levels can be identified the panel may then look at how these would vary across the population, including for habitual users of these substances.

The panel will examine whether impairment levels could be exceeded through prescribed or otherwise legally obtained drugs as well as the effects of the interaction drugs and alcohol and of different combinations of drugs.

The expert panel will comprise academic and scientific experts in the field of alcohol and drug misuse and we are also working with colleagues from the Home Office and Department of Health.

The group's remit will be to provide scientific, evidence-based technical advice and not to provide policy or legal advice.

I give you the alcohol limit for drink-driving.
An arbitrary limit with no relation to the individual.
As for illegal drugs: they are illegal, that's it. No need to prove inhibition of driving ability. They are illegal and that includes possession and/or use.
Much more difficult for legal prescription drugs.
But nothing that cannot be overcome by an arbitrary limit with little relationship to ability to drive.
All you then need is a machine to detect and quantify the drug.

I give you the alcohol limit for drink-driving.
An arbitrary limit with no relation to the individual.

But still a limit, not a total prohibition.

I would say it would be in practical terms very difficult, and in intellectual terms very questionable (given that they are illegal substances anyway) to develop similar limits for prohibited drugs.

As Jo says - any Illegal in system - BAN .No get out of jail card , no £200 - just BAN . The drugs testing system has the technology to detect - and if detected - only solution - BAN . I can assure you that the system will /can detect anything illegal - we had a bloke done for illegal use many weks after stopping .

So, given that detectable traces of cannabis can remain in the system for two weeks, you would ban drivers for cannabis use on that basis?

Why not - he's used - how cn you be assured that the traces are not from use today ?, when he /she could be unfit . The law bans drivers from driving under the influence - whose to say that he's not still undr the influence .

Do you have proof that these "trace levels" still result with impairment weeks/months later? If not, then aren't you jumping the gun a little?

No - because .today these are trace - but what could be the effect hours later - if they use , can you be certain that they're not using again -or that the driver behind you is a user - and if you stop - he'll not see you stopping and slam ito you .

Can the stuff be detected (in the trace amounts) in someone who merely attended a party the evening before and inadvertently inhaled it?

What if a person went on holiday, experimented on holiday (only because they were on holiday - it happens)

Should we not apply the basic fundamental principle of 'innocence before guilt'?

Yes ,from what i've been told on rail briefings

If it shows in their blood /system ,and can they be certain of the time to get it out - or the effects to recover - then they are suspect drivers .

But if this site is prepared to absolve drink driving ( withnany level of content in blood/ drug use of any sort ) ,then perhaps it's time i got out .