NEWS - Drug Impaired Driving
Bill C-2 receives Royal Assent, drug impaired driving provisions to take effect on July 2, 2008
Bill C-2 expands drug enforcement capabilities by giving police the authority to demand physical sobriety tests and bodily fluid samples for section 253(a) investigations. Such tests will look for impairment by illegal, over-the-counter, and prescription drugs. As a first step, police officers will be authorized to administer Standardized Field Sobriety Tests (SFST) at the roadside if the officer has a reasonable suspicion that the driver has a drug in his or her body. SFST involves physical sobriety evaluations such as divided attention tests that evaluate the driver’s ability to multitask. If the driver fails, the officer will then have reasonable grounds to believe that a drug-impaired driving offence has been committed, and can escort the driver to a police station for administration of a Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) evaluation involving a combination of interviews and physical observations. Should the DRE officer identify that a specific family of drugs is causing impairment, Bill C-2 allows officers to take a saliva, urine, or blood sample. Charges will not be laid without confirmation of preliminary DRE results through a toxicology report, but the results of such tests can then be used as evidence in drug-impaired driving prosecutions. A driver’s refusal to comply with an officer’s request for a physical sobriety or bodily fluid sample test constitutes a criminal offence punishable under the same provisions that are currently applicable for refusing to perform an alcohol breath or blood test.