Attention! Driving Under the Influence of Pot

Driving with 5 ng or more of THC per ml of blood

First offence is a mandatory minimum $1000 fine. Second offence is a mandatory minimum of 30 days in jail. Third and all subsequent offences result in a mandatory minimum of 120 days in jail. Up to 10 years imprisonment.

What are the dangers of driving high?

Driving while high on weed or any other drug can impair your ability to drive. Smoking pot and taking drugs can affect you in many ways. Smoking pot results in slower response times, reduced memory and reduced ability to concentrate (and learn). So if you’re high and driving, here’s what might happen :

• Decrease in motor skills : You could have trouble performing routine tasks along with issues with balance and coordination.
• Slower reaction time : A driver will take longer to react to a sudden or unexpected event.
• Decreased ability to concentrate : A driver may have decreased attention span (also known as drifting attention).
• Hyper-focus : Pot can also cause a driver to focus too much on some aspects of driving while forgetting others.



Driving High in Ontario   thinkinsure


• Increased difficulty judging distances and time : It’s harder to judge distances while driving. Pot changes a driver’s sense of time and distance.

"Driving while impaired by a drug has been a criminal offence since 1925, but this offence has always been challenging to prove in court."

"Detecting and proving impairment caused by drugs is different and more complex than detecting and proving impairment caused by alcohol."

"In most jurisdictions across Canada, data sources ... tend to indicate an ongoing trend over the past ten to twelve years of DID incidents increasing as a proportion of all impaired-driving incidents, with cannabis being one of the most frequently detected class of drug among drivers."

Public Safety Canada report

Toronto DUI

 

Police stops where drivers were found to have drugs in their system have increased substantially since 2008; more than one in ten impaired driving reports are now related to drug consumption. In the same period, drug-impaired driving (DID) reported by police increased "significantly" in comparison to alcohol=impaired incidents where a significant drop has been seen over the last decade.

Police reported close to 7,500 drug-impaired driving incidents in 2021, a continuation of the trend to increasing DID incidents since 2009, when 1,407 such incidents were recorded. Starting in 2018, numbers began acceleratomg, reflecting the first full year that the use of recreational cannabis became legal in Canada.

Of all impaired driving charges laid by police, 11 percent now are representative of motorists operating a motor vehicle while impaired by drugs, compared to 1.5 percent in 2009.  Survey data show frequent cannabis users increasingly convinced the drug does not impair their driving skills. A study that found drivers injured in a DID incident had higher levels of THC (the chemical that imparts a high in cannabis) in their blood, was cited in the report.

iStock

Interestingly, Public Safety findings made note of the fact that alcohol-impaired driving offences remain more likely to lead to criminal charges in comparison to drugs. Despite drug-impaired driving incidents having increased as reported by police since cannabis legalization in 2017. The increase is reported to more likely be due to factors such as more power given to officers to detect and investigate drug consumption, along with new detection tools.

The use of new "approved drug screening equipment" during roadside stops, removing barriers that previously prevented police from demanding a driver's blood sample, and creating new criminal offences setting legal blood drug concentration limits (5ng of THC per millilitre of blood) are all cited in the report as possible explanations to a certain extent of the police-reported increase in DID cases.

"Many drugs impair one’s ability to drive. Depending on the drug type, it can reduce alertness, alter depth perception, impair concentration and attention span, slow reaction time, and affect motor skills and visual function. Many people think driving under the influence of cannabis is risk-free, and that drivers on cannabis are more cautious and driver slower. But studies show that cannabis can have a negative impact on driving, including reduced concentration and attention span, slower reaction time, and an altered perception of time and distance. Driving studies (simulated and on-road) showed drivers had increased variability in lane position, following distance and speed following cannabis use. Cannabis also affected driver ability to react to unexpected events, such as a pedestrian darting out onto the roadway."
(Source: Clearing the Smoke on Cannabis Cannabis Use and Driving – An Update. Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction. Douglas J. Beirness, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate, CCSA, Amy J. Porath, Ph.D., Director, Research and Policy, CCSA.)

MADD Canada

Detecting Cannabis-Impaired Drivers

"This is all about safety, we feel very strongly that operating a commercial vehicle on roadways comes with added responsibility."
"With that, things like comprehensive drug and alcohol testing goes hand-in hand."
Jonathan Blackham, director of policy and public affairs, Canadian Trucking Alliance

"Federally regulated employers do not tolerate impairment on the job, and that has not changed since cannabis was legalized."
"Employees have a duty to work safely. Those who are not fit to do so may pose serious health and safety risks to themselves, their co-workers and the general public."
Jordan Crosby, issues manager, Ministry of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction

"Any occupation that requires the person to operate equipment that directly interacts with the public and their safety should require at a minimum that those workers are well rested, well trained and drug free."
"Anything less flirts with accidents, injuries and fatalities."
Lane Kidd, managing director, Alliance for Driver Safety and Security in the U.S.

There are no laws in Canada requiring commercial drivers to pass drug tests, leaving employers to decide if the procedures are worth it. Ed Kaiser / Postmedia

A year has passed since Canada legalized recreational marijuana. And on schedule, from October 17 of this year the suspension of cannabis products that can be vaped, eaten or smoothed on the skin, is officially over. This represents the second phase of cannabis products to be released for sale to the public with regulations governing an array of such products effective as of this date. Notice of 60 days to Health Canada is required which then must be reviewed by Health Canada officials to ensure each product is compliant with regulations to ensure they are safe, contain a controlled amount of THC and are not used in the promotion of pot.

The three new categories; edibles, concentrates such as vape pen oil, and topicals such as lotions will gradually be placed on store shelves as over 40 cannabis producers have duly notified Health Canada of their intention to produce products under the new regulations. Given the 60 days' notice and the following reviews by Health Canada before release, by mid-December new edible products should be legally available in Canada in the form of drinks, chocolates, candy and cookies, among others.

Some of the edible cannabis products available in the U.S. Ethan Miller/Getty Images

There is concern over cannabis vape pens, given the outbreak of lung infections and deaths in the United States associated with vaping. U.S. health officials have reported 1,299 cases of lung injuries and 26 deaths attributable to vaping most of which resulted from THC vaping according to the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. THC vaping products obtained from illicit sources "play a major role in the outbreak", according to the health agency.

In Canada, regulations do not permit the inclusion of Vitamin E acetate, found in some of the oil vaped by Americans who fell ill in the U.S. With the exception of flavouring agents, Canadian-produced products must be "of pharmaceutical quality", emphasizes Health Canada, with an eye to reducing risks. According to Health Canada, cannabis vape oil to be sold in the country must meet nationwide health and safety regulations, in reference to contaminated black-market cannabis oil that felled so many vapers in the U.S.

The new availability of a whole host of new cannabis-infused edibles and drinks has caused concern on the part of safety experts, that the new products will entice a whole new wave of users at a time when the federal government has enacted no legislation requiring commercial drivers; truckers -- bus drivers, cabbies, chauffeurs, couriers and rideshare operations -- to undergo drug-testing on the job. It's an awkward issue for employers to navigate given court battles are "all over the place", commented Toronto cannabis lawyer Harrison Jordan.

Cannabis impairment, given the new availability of emerging ingestible products, will be more difficult to detect since the new products are known to give a variant high, taking longer to kick in, the result of which might leave drivers impaired unexpectedly. The Canadian Trucking Alliance has called for the federal government in Ottawa to mandate drug testing for commercial drivers. According to Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey, in 2018 there were 1.1 million commercial drivers in Canada.

The Toronto Transit Commission implemens drug testing. Postmedia

Because it is seen to be an infringement on a worker's right to privacy, Canada has no mandatory drug testing in the workplace. With an absence of laws governing drug tests for commercial drivers, the ball is in the employer's court. "The balancing act is if the potential safety benefits outweigh potential intrusion to employee privacy", explained lawyer Harrison Jordan. Evidence must be presented of a problem with substance abuse before workplaces wishing to include random or pre-empoyment drug tests can be given allowance to do so.

In the United States, on the other hand, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration requires commercial drivers to undergo pre-employment, random and post-incident drug testing. Despite which, a recent report from America's Alliance for Driver Safety & Security estimated that 320,000 impaired truck drivers could be driving American highways with sufficiently elevated drug levels to fail a hair test.

Canadian border guards are silhouetted as they replace each other at an inspection booth at the Douglas border crossing on the Canada-USA border in Surrey, B.C. Darryl Dyck / The Canadian Press

Are We Becoming Concerned Yet?

"We are witnessing the beginning of a real debate around the wider legally regulated availability of drugs in Canada. The legalization of cannabis has opened peoples' minds to the idea of responsible regulation, whilst the opioid crisis has forced the debate into new territory. The window of opportunity is now wide open."
"Which drugs would be available, to whom, and where? These are tricky questions, but once we are able to answer under a legally regulated model where government has taken back control, rather than abdicating all responsibility to criminal market forces. More risky substances could be available only via a medical prescription model with supervised use, like heroin in Switzerland. Certain medium-risk drugs, including certain stimulants and party drugs, could be available on a rationed basis to adults from pharmacies, perhaps with a licensed buyer model, once they have proven they understand the risks. Other lower-risk drugs could be more available through appropriate licensed retailing, as we are about to do with cannabis."
David-Martin Milot, medical specialist in public health and preventive medicine, Canada
Steve Rolles, Senior Policy Analyst, Transform Drug Policy Foundation, United Kingdom

One in seven cannabis users with a driver's licence said they had got behind the wheel at least once within two hours of using the drug in the past three months. (Shutterstock)

So, open our minds a little further, beyond merely legalizing marijuana, so that criminal charges would not apply to anyone using once-forbidden drugs. Serious 'substances' needing a medical prescription and supervised use; medium-risk drugs available on a rationed track from pharmacies after an educational interrogation, and low-risk drugs obtained through licensed retailing. To some people with an independent streak this might seem like the same old interfering government auspices that so irritates those who feel they should be empowered to just get the stuff and get on with it.

The result being that the kind of black market activities with freely available drugs of all descriptions whose prices are becoming more 'affordable' increasingly, will remain in force, due to popular demand. Complete with the sociopathic compulsion to maximize profitability by 'cutting' drugs with cheaper, more powerful alternatives. People being people, are psychologically driven to resistance against imposing rules for anything they feel is their right to engage in without interference from any source.

As for imposing rules and expecting that law-abiding citizens will adhere to them for everyone's benefit, it ain't necessarily so.

Not until November, two months' hence will pot be entirely legalized in Canada, with a few provisos that edible forms will remain illegal, and only government-appointed sources will be mandated under license to sell those forms of the drug that are permitted, leaving the system in place for medical marijuana to its own devices. And one can only wonder what the end result will be; do government authorities really believe that cannabis will be kept out of the hands of vulnerable youth whose brains, still in their formative stage science has shown can be deleteriously affected with its use?

This appeal to legalize all drugs is an interesting one, reflecting in large part desperation on the part of government agencies and the medical community in the emergency efforts to deal with a rising tide of opioid overdoses leading to death. Aligned with the recognition that up to the present, laws that have criminalized non-medical drug use have failed dismally, in lock-step with the reality of criminal gangs from street corner operations to national syndicates having flourished -- and their scruples end where profits begin.

A new Statistics Canada survey reveals an "alarming" number of Canadians have driven a vehicle while high on cannabis or have been passengers in such vehicles.     CKWS

Statistics Canada has just released its second quarterly national cannabis survey, and according to the results an "alarming" number of Canadians evidently don't think twice about driving while high on cannabis. Admittedly, nowhere near all cannabis users flout common sense, yet 14 percent with a driver's licence revealed that within two hours of consuming cannabis they decided to get behind the wheel of a vehicle ... and this, while cannabis use yet remains illegal.

Five percent of Canadians over age 14 have been a passenger in a vehicle being driven by someone who had used cannabis in the preceding two hours. Public danger? You bet. These quarterly surveys being conducted by Statistics Canada represent an effort meant to measure social and economic impacts involved in the legalization of cannabis. It's one thing to discourage people from driving while high but the issue of cannabis strength and individual users' reaction to pot, certainly complicates the matter.

This second quarter data revealed that roughly 4.6 million Canadians, representing about 16 percent of Canadians age 15 and over, reported the use of cannabis in the three-month period before the survey was undertaken. Men, close to two times likelier than women to drive while high on marijuana. On the national scene, cannabis use was higher in Nova Scotia at 21 percent than the national average, with Ontario at 18 percent -- Whitehorse 23 percent, Yellowknife 27 percent and Iqaluit 33 percent.

"I think if you compare it to alcohol, they're shocking [statistics that the rate of Canadians who drive after using using pot is triple the number of those consuming alcohol in the preceding two hours before driving]."
"I think [however, that] once people get the idea that police do have the tools, that they can detect drug-impaired drivers, especially cannabis, then I think like alcohol with the breathalyzer it'll start to lower those rates."
Andrew Murie, CEO, MADD Canada

You think?

According to Statistics Canada’s latest cannabis survey, 14 per cent of users are driving within two hours of consumption.  (Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press)

Coming To A Highway Near You

"Canadians consumed as much as $6.2 billion of marijuana in 2015, almost as much as they spent on wine, the federal statistics agency said Monday as it gears up to officially track weed when it becomes legal next year."
"The agency calculated the value by estimating 4.9 million people consumed 698 metric tons of cannabis that year, at an assumed price range of $7.14 to $8.84 a gram. It used government health and social surveys and outside research to create its model."
"Statistics Canada called its report 'Experimental Estimates of Cannabis Consumption in Canada, 1960 to 2015' and admitted there is 'currently no systematic process' for measuring usage. The agency warned its estimate for the market is very rough, and actual consumption could 'reasonably' be as low as half or as much as double."
Financial Post, December 18, 2017

Annual consumption of marijuana appears to be one-half to two-thirds the size of the $9.2 billion beer market, or almost as much as the $7 billion wine market.    Postmedia Network

"'The compositional change in the cannabis market [from a younger, teen and 20s cohort to seniors] is consistent with a change where the baby boomer cohort was exposed to cannabis in high school and university, and carried a preference for cannabis consumption with them as they aged', the report notes."
"The rising trend occurs as boomers, and the cohorts that followed after them with similar exposure and preferences, replaced the war generation, which had different preferences with respect to cannabis use."
Statistics Canada

"Driving while impaired by cannabis or other drugs is dangerous and illegal."
"The message is simple -- don't drive high."
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale

"[Survey results] reinforce why we have invested in targeted public education and awareness efforts."
Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor

"[The federal government's public awareness campaign] has been a failure. It barely got off the ground until the fall."
"What it [the survey results] could mean is that some  individuals who really aren't impaired are going to be caught and other people who are impaired are going to get away with drug impaired driving."
"When legalization comes into effect, more Canadians are going to be consuming marijuana and more Canadians are going to be on our roads driving impaired. This is a rushed and arbitrary timeline [July 1, 2018]."
Conservative justice critic MP Michael Cooper 

About 4.9 million Canadians consumed cannabis in 2015, according to a new research study released by Statistics Canada. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)

This was an election campaign promise by Justin Trudeau, aspiring to become Prime Minister. Promises issued from this man like candy scattered at the feet of eager children. Many of the promises to entice Canadians to vote for this man were meant to reverse many of the initiatives and legislation passed by the previous, Conservative government and have failed to materialize. The campaign promise to legalize marijuana is on tap, however. Even if eager growers and distributors have been setting up shop in the public arena, flouting the law as it stands.

There have been police raids to close down illegal pot shops and arrest people working in them, and they simply pop up again, ready to resume business. The bad news for these entrepreneurs is that only specifically 'registered' sales outlets for pot will be recognized as legitimate, all others will be breaking the law. The headaches associated with keeping pot out of the hands of the young to prevent health complications to their growing brains is an issue that has not been adequately addressed, nor will it be.

And then there's the other sobering issue of public safety on the roads. Provinces are tasked by the federal government to do all the heavy lifting in surveillance and organization. Time-consuming and costly, the provinces' responsibilities will be rewarded with an agreed-upon three-quarters of the taxation revenues accruing from industry sales. In the meanwhile, scientists, the medical community  teachers and police have all expressed misgivings over the impending date of legalization, July first, 2018.

Health Canada has now released the results of a survey indicating that of the 9,215 people interviewed between the ages of 16 and up, 2,650 respondents stated cannabis had been used by them in the previous year, for medical or recreational purposes. Half of the respondents consuming cannabis had the opinion that marijuana use affects driving skills, according to the Canadian Cannabis Survey, compared to 75 percent with that opinion among non-cannabis users.

Among the cannabis users surveyed, 24 percent said it depends, and 19 percent stated there is no affect on driving, with cannabis use.

Moreover, 39 percent of those who had used marijuana in the last 12 months stated that within two hours of consuming cannabis they had driven at some point during that year, while 40 percent claimed to have driven in the previous 30 days after using cannabis, and 15 percent admitted using cannabis in combination with alcohol and they had afterward driven. A mere two percent reported having had any interaction with police related to driving under the influence.

People found to have two nanograms of THC [the principle psychoactive ingredient in cannabis] per millilitre of blood within two hours of driving, under Bill C-46, stand the risk of being fined up to $1,000 and those with over five nanograms could be sentenced to up to ten years' imprisonment. Critics of these parameters point out that no clear correlation exists between the amount of THC in the blood and the level of impairment, varying widely from individual to individual. Serving to further complicate an already complicated issue.

Statistics Canada estimates that Canadians may have consumed $6.2 billion worth of marijuana in 2015.  (Ryan Remiorz / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo) 

Progress ... Or Problems .... ?

"There is some preliminary research indicating that a breath test can be developed for cannabis. It's slow, expensive and not yet reliable. So we're a long way from a breath test for cannabis ... [despite] some promoters out there who have been touting miraculous, easy, cheap [breath tests."
"The difficulty is that the request for a sample [of urine, blood or saliva] is likely that person is not going to test positive."
"And the simple fact is that our courts haven't been very receptive to the DRE [drug recognition evaluation] evidence."
"We have more people on our roads who are positive for drugs than for alcohol. And yet drug-impaired driving charges constitute two to three percent of all impaired driving charges."
Dr. Robert Solomon, professor of law, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario

Fullerton police Officer Jae Song conducts a field sobriety test on a motorist suspected of driving while under the influence of marijuana. The suspect was later arrested. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The Government of Canada tabled proposed new laws to legalize recreational marijuana for people aged 18 and up in the House of Commons on April 13, to initiate a process set to be completed in a year's time, by July of 2018. The ruling Liberal party made it a campaign promise to legalize pot, and this is the first step in a year-long process to do just that. While legalizing pot, the government asserts it to be the best way to keep marijuana out of the hands of young people.

Canadians also happen to be the heaviest marijuana users in the developed world, and policing the illegal drug is estimated to cost around $3-billion annually. At the present time, its use thrives on the black market where criminals realize hefty profits and push its use. The returns are said to average around $7- to $8-billion annually. The fact that its use threatens normal brain development in young people is sufficiently concerning that it was hoped it would be illegal for anyone under age 25 to use it. But the age chosen is 18 for recreational marijuana use.

The additional looming concern is the issue of driving under the influence of drugs; an existing problem that will be certain to increase substantially with decriminalization. Most people in the general public interested in using cannabis, young and old, think it to be non-addictive, but in a certain percentage of people it does become an addiction. And like any other substance of its nature there are other penalties to the body and the mind that cannabis use can cause.

No doubt the government will ask the Department of Health to launch an education program in that regard. But it is the provinces and the territories that will be responsible for educating, policing, regulating and setting up parameters to be met to remain within the law, and municipalities will be responsible for permits to set up commercial outlets. The quality of the products will also be a concern that one or two levels of government will have to address.

As for policing the issue of driving under the influence, the manner in which those thought to be impaired behind the wheel are to be assessed presents a giant headache at this preliminary stage. Normally when police make an initial assessment of whether a driver is impaired, a simple field sobriety test is engaged: Can you walk a straight line? Can you follow with your eyes the movement of this object? Can you stand on one foot?

Should that line of testing fail, a breath test is taken. And a DRE test follows, a 12-part test dealing with physiological aspects; pulse, temperature, signs of needle marks and symptoms of impairment. After which if impairment is validated, the demand is made for a sample of urine, blood or saliva. And therein lies a problem: cannabis dissipates quickly from the blood while it may be up to two hours where the investigative point is reached where a driver is asked to provide a sample.

Still from video : Global News

Roadside Testing for Marijuana Impairment

"There is no legislation right now where a number means anything. It means nothing in the law. Until we get a number [in judging the amount of THC in a driver's urine or bloodstream], we will have no number to prosecute."
"We're having our challenges. The most pressing one is that we don't know what the legislation will look like. It makes it hard to train and prepare."
"Young people between 15 and 24 don't think cannabis use has any effect on driving, and that police can't do anything about it."
"We have to create a culture that doesn't accept the use of cannabis and the operation of a motor vehicle."
Superintendent Gord Jones, Toronto Police, co-chair, Canadian Chiefs of Police, traffic committee

An Ontario Provincial Police officer demonstrates the use of a roadside drug-screening device. The Toronto Police, along with the OPP, are taking part in a pilot project testing two such devices. (Ontario Provincial Police)

Drivers who become suspects of drug use, under legislation brought into law in 2008 are required to take part in drug evaluation under the auspices of a Drug Recognition Expert (DRE), officials drawn from among police forces who have undergone training along international standards and who also rely on the experience of observations when determining whether a blood or urine test is warranted in specific situations.

At the present time across Canada fewer than 600 trained DRE officials can be deployed, while a 2009 assessment estimated that to be effective, Canada would require between 1,800 and 2,000 such officers on active duty. Currently, the training system preparing DRE officers hasn't been given the mandate nor the equipment to prepare such trained officers any speedier than they do now. In other words, at a time when the number of marijuana-infused drivers is on the cusp of increasing with soon-to-be legalized marijuana in the country, there is a lag in preparedness on that front.

And this, when it is well known that Cannabis use has a detrimental affect on reaction time, visual function, concentration and short-term memory. Symptoms relating to the use of cannabis include poor concentration, uneven balance, the reduced capacity to divide attention, along with elevated pulse and blood pressure, visibly dilated pupils, red eyes and eyelids, or body tremors, all visible to the trained eye.

What is as yet unclear is how much the chemical responsible for the psychological effects in marijuana, -- THC -- it would take to produce an impaired driver, according to the
Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse. Such effects are idiosyncratic to the individual, where the person who may be impaired substantially after ingesting a modest amount of marijuana reacts differently than another person who may present as merely moderately impaired using a similar dose of marijuana to the first.

In 2015, Statistics Canada reported some 75,000 impaired driving infractions, 2,500 of which were related to drugs. Studies find that a sizeable proportion of drivers, on the other hand, who die in motor vehicle accidents have drugs in their systems reflecting the use of all manner of drugs, exclusive of alcohol. A third of fatally injured drivers, aged 15 to 24 were also found to have used a variety of drugs, according to a 2010 study.

"We're getting a picture that people who are using cannabis are dying in greater numbers than ever before", advised Douglas Beirness, senior researcher with the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.

It's a complex issue. Police can readily detect the signals that an alcohol-impaired driver conveys; the odour of booze, for example, on the breath. There may not be an odour associated with cannabis to link it with a user, however, since users increasingly consume it in edible products. If there is an odour of pot, or a positive test following a fatal accident, the cannabis might have been used at a much earlier date, since the chemical traces of cannabis linger in the body.

"Drugs affect everyone differently based on the drug and the way the body metabolizes the drug", explained RCMP Sgt. Ray Moos, national co-ordinator of the DRE program. Training in the DRE program is conducted in a two-stage model, starting with a ten-day classroom session whee trainees are familiarized in recognition of the way drugs, licit and illicit, impair the user's body. They must pay attention to symptoms of blood pressure and heart rate abnormalities and to this end DRE officers carry a kit with a stethoscope, blood pressure cuff and thermometer.

The classroom portion of the training is followed by a four-day field certification process where subjects are analyzed for recognizable impairment. The DRE is called to respond when police stop a suspect driver. The individual may then face a demand by the DRE officer to provide a urine, saliva or blood test at a police station, representing a half-hour process. The resulting tests are forwarded to a toxicology lab, of which the RCMP have three, the OPP and QPP having their own labs.

Some of the equipment that Toronto police will use in a pilot project testing roadside drug-screening devices. (Supplied)

Drunk Drivers: Impervious to Rational Decision-Making

"It's not a deterrent. It never has been. It never will. ... There's other things that deter them [drunk drivers], the penalties given out in court are not part of that."
Andrew Murie, CEO, Mothers Against Drunk Driving Canada

"There's going to be some people out there, it doesn't matter how strict the laws are, how tough the sentences are, there's this perception that they can get away with it [undetected, driving while under the influence of alcohol]."
Steve Brown, research associate, Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) 

Photograph by Cole Garside

"The reality is that the message about the dangers of impaired driving has been repeated, loudly and clearly, for decades now."
"For those who continue to ignore a message they have heard for most of their lives, moral blameworthiness is increased, just as societal tolerance is decreased."
Judge Cary Boswell, Ontario Court Justice

A new study by the federal Justice Department has found that tougher sentences don't appear to deter convicted impaired drivers from repeating the offence. (Jon Castell/CBC )

Acknowledging that new precedents have been established in Canadian courts by judges choosing to impose stricter, more serious prison time for drunk driving offenders whose decision to drive while drunk has resulted in someone else's death through an accident, the hope lingers that these more representative sentences will dissuade people from driving while under the influence of alcohol for fear they will end up with a punishment designed to fit the crime if they are responsible for causing death while behind the wheel.

There was the ten-year prison sentence given to Marco Muzzo of Toronto. He had pleaded guilty in the deaths of three children and their grandfather, when his vehicle broadsided theirs while he was under the influence of alcohol. This was a well-connected businessman, scion of a well-known and -respected establishment family. That Mr. Muzzo recognized after the fact the fault in his supposition that he could drive without penalty or threat to anyone else, will not bring back those lost lives, nor the years he will lose of his own life, in prison.

After citing that precedent Justice Boswell sentenced a 34-year-old, a father himself who, while intoxicated had chosen to drive his vehicle, striking two city workers in Alliston, Ontario, one of whom was badly injured, while the other, Geoffrey Gaston, a father of two, suffered injuries that proved fatal. In Justice Boswell's decision sentencing Marcello Francassi to six years in prison, minus time already served, the judge spoke of the young man's remorse and as well he cited a number of precedents apart from the Muzzo case.

Experts in the field of assessing the phenomenon of driving while intoxicated and the penalties meted out up to the present, while acknowledging that those penalties have increased to reflect the seriousness of the crime, also speak of their conviction that those tougher sentences do little to deter people who drink and drive from continuing that practise. The harsher sentences answer to the need to match the punishment to the crime, but the hoped-for effect of dissuading others appears not to work.

What some, like Mr. Murie of MADD are convinced of, is that the fear of a harsh sentence has made little inroads in the consciousness of drunk drivers; they are concerned solely with the prospect of being caught. And despite an energetic, well-publicized campaign to warn, shame and convince people who drink and drive that they are gambling with their lives and the lives of others, the incidence of driving while under the influence remains a constant on Canadian highways.

According to TIRF, which tracks fatalities using police and coroner databases, drunk driving continues to account for close to a third of deaths on Canada's roads, as they have done for years. According to the latest available data for the year 2013, 480 people representing 28 percent of all fatalities died, resulting from impaired driving consequences. TIRF's 2016 Road Safety Monitor found a rise in the numbers who have admitted to driving within two  hours of consuming alcohol.

Their annual online poll, surveying close to two thousand Canadians on drinking and driving, found that close to 22 percent admitted to doing just that, a rise of five percent from the previous year. Some 4.6 percent felt they had driven with a blood alcohol content over the legal limit, another increase from the year before. And many felt confident that there was no good reason why they couldn't continue doing so.

RCMP Cnst. Faz Majid removes an open bottle of beer from a motorist's car during a roadside check in Surrey, B.C., on September 24, 2010. An internal report by the federal Justice Department raises doubts about the effectiveness of harsher sentences, the linchpin of the Tory government's tough-on-crime policies. (DARRYL DYCK / CP)

Drugged Driving

"We reduced our toxicology capacity immensely. What were you thinking?"
"Now we're going to increase the number of samples we're getting. There's the problem."
Doug Beirness, senior research associate, Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse

"We're talking about two completely different [roadside testing for alcohol as opposed to testing for drugs] animals."
"The reality of the experience of our friends in the States is they have seen an increase [in marijuana use], and there will be an impact on labs across the country."
Superintendent Gord Jones, co-chair, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police traffic committee

"It should be expected that the number of samples requiring lab analysis will increase dramatically once cannabis is legalized, simply because the police will be reacting to the new regime with a similar approach as they do for driving under the influence of alcohol."
"Roadside checks and random screening of drivers for drugs will likely occur more often."
RCMP request for proposals (RPF)

RCMP

Health Canada has issued some startling new statistics reflecting an astonishing rise in the number of Canadians who are increasingly being given prescriptions for marijuana for relief from chronic pain, from nausea caused by chemotherapy and every other debilitating illness that causes its sufferers pain and discomfort. September's end in 2016 saw one hundred thousand Canadians with prescriptions in hand, registered to enable them to procure cannabis from a grower licensed by Health Canada.

In September of 2015 the number of people that fit this category was a much more slender 30,537. The year between saw the legalization of large commercial grow operations selling cannabis strictly by mail. The growing awareness of the usefulness of some strains of marijuana in dealing with pain has spread among both patients and their doctors. In response to this emerging situation clinics and information centres whose purpose is to advise patients how they may obtain legal cannabis, point them to cannabis-accepting physicians and offer use-of-product advice, have been opening.

At the same time, pending final legislative approval of the legal use of recreational marijuana, store-front clinics have been popping up all over Canadian cities to serve a drop-in clientele presumably with prescription in hand, although their operation is both premature and illegal at the present time. Area police have responded by raiding some of the cannabis-specialty shops and closing them down. Some proprietors simply re-open them and with seeming impunity.

This free-for-all situation pending legalization is one the federal government does not appear to know how to handle, other than to inform municipalities that they must uphold the law. And the law, at present, is that these sources to obtain marijuana are not licensed to do so, and nor are they regulated, much less operating in a legal environment. And now, the RCMP is anticipating a deluge of requests for proposals over the capacity of the lab system in Canada to advise on a new framework for bodily fluid samples analyzation.

Law enforcement in Colorado, where the state has made marijuana possession legal, has reported increased charges reflecting an increase in the incidence of driving under the influence of drugs. Perhaps not unexpectedly, there have been more traffic deaths as a result of "drugged drivers" since Colorado legalized marijuana. Washington state, which also legalized marijuana use and possession has reported similar trends. And now Canada is anticipating what is certainly destined to occur.

Setting aside the additional issue of keeping legal marijuana out of the hands of young people whose still-developing brains are known to be vulnerable to deleterious effects of marijuana use, law enforcement agencies are now looking at the prospect of increased mayhem on the nation's roads. Where coping with alcohol-impaired drivers has always been an issue, and now drug-impaired driving is promising to add to the situation of unsafe roads. Most people who use marijuana don't recognize it as leading to a temporary brain impairment through delayed responses and danger.

With the recreational use of marijuana legalized, as the current Liberal-led government in Canada has promised, adding to the numbers who use cannabis for health reasons, the situation represents a public danger waiting to be unleashed. Recently, forensic RCMP labs were closed in Halifax, Winnipeg and Regina, the purpose being to save $3.5 million annually in operating expenses. At a time when such labs will be more in use than ever and will find themselves unable to handle all the tests required.

Trained "drug recognition experts" will become the first order of business to handle an anticipated rise in demand to determine whether someone is under the influence of a narcotic when they are suspected of impaired driving. If the determination is in the affirmative, a sample can be requested, and forwarded to a forensic lab for confirmation. Blood samples work as an indication whether drivers have a drug circulating actively in their systems.

While police forces at the present time test with hand-held devices to analyze saliva, whether courts will accept such results as evidence has yet to be determined. The best tool at the disposal of society and the law, however, remains as always, with education. To convince people that marijuana use and driving don't represent a match made in heaven. Unless they're planning to visit heaven prematurely and leave their lives behind and perhaps those of innocent victims of drugged-driving.

Rian Castillo/CC BY

 

After alcohol, marijuana is the drug most often found in the blood of drivers involved in crashes. Tests for detecting marijuana in drivers measure the level of delta-9- tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), marijuana’s mind-altering ingredient, in the blood. But the role that marijuana plays in crashes is often unclear. THC can be detected in body fluids for days or even weeks after use, and it is often combined with alcohol. The risk associated with marijuana in combination with alcohol, cocaine, or benzodiazepines appears to be greater than that for either drug by itself.

Drunk and Driving in Toronto

"When you choose to drink and drive, you're choosing to kill someone else's babies, like mine were killed."
"Like all of mine were killed [Daniel 9, Harrison 5, Milly 2, grandfather Gary Neville, 65], on a beautiful Sunday afternoon just after 4 o'clock [September 27, 2015]."
Jennifer Neville-Lake, bereaved mother, daughter, greater Toronto

"Our enforcement strategy is showing that the numbers are not going down. I think the million-dollar question is: How do we [send a message to] males between 22 and 34 to get their act in order?"
"Everybody knows we're [traffic police] out there, and we publish information about our long-weekend results or when we've had a bad week. How do you message this group to change their behaviour?"
"Clearly, the fear of being caught is not having any impact. If this group [males 22-34] are our biggest offenders and they're drinking at residences before they go out to bars ... you have to own what they do after they leave your house. If you can't stop the offender can you stop the location? If it's not at a bar and it's at someone's house, maybe the message needs to go to [householders]."
Inspector Randy Slade, GTA police force traffic bureau

"This really is one of the larger societal ills. This is a situation where I would probably be trying to challenge the public and say: You know what? This is not an issue that any one entity, for instance government or the police, are solely responsible for preventing."
"One of the things that really has to happen is we need a wholesale change of behaviour in the motoring public. There was a time that the public accepted smoking on airplanes. We're in a situation now where smoking as a behaviour is almost socially verboten, especially in public circles."
"We see a lot more fatalities that are related to speed in areas that are generally more rural and as a result have higher speed limits."
"In some of the more outlying areas -- the north end of Peel, Durham, Halton or even up as far as York -- when you talk about impaired operation, generally one of the aspects that leads to your significant and life-altering injuries and/or fatalities is going to be an element of speed."
Halton police Sgt. Ryan Snow

Peel police say they are reviewing a judge’s decision to drop impaired driving charges after an accused man's rights were breached by not being provided with a Punjabi interpreter.  (Bernard Weil / Toronto Star)

The 29-year-old man, scion of a well-connected, wealthy Toronto family, was sentenced to ten years in prison when Marco Muzzo pleaded guilty to charges of driving while under the influence and in so doing destroyed four lives of one family whom he killed in a crash when he drove his SUV drunk, unheeding the danger he posed to others sharing the public highways with his blood alcohol level three times the legal limit, because he felt entitled to do as he wished, not as he should, and he has plenty of company in that dangerous attitude.

Last year, York Regional Police laid 1,029 charges for impaired driving, a substantial increase from the total 885 of the previous year, let alone the 717 charges for 2013. In York region of greater Toronto the rate of charges per 100,000 residents has shot up to 94, from roughly 67 of previous years, a trajectory that represents the "continuation of a disturbing trend", according to Inspector Slade. Of the offenders, 85 percent are male, mostly between the ages of 22 to 34.

And nor are Halton Region's numbers of impaired driving cases any improvement; they too are on the rise. Halton police last year laid close to 450 charges, some 100 more than four years earlier. The past decade has seen the rate of charges per 100,000 residents for impaired driving growing to 82 from 62 annually. License suspensions, criminal convictions, threat of injury, none of these penalties are viewed as deterrents in the minds of the offenders.

Even while Durham and Peel regions have seen a decline in impairment charges in the past few years, the two regions still share the distinction of having the highest overall rates; Durham coming in at 116 charges per 100,000 residents, and Peel at 104. "Every area is different. You have your rural areas and then you have  your business areas, so it all depends on what's going on in the area and the information that we receive where we can target things", explained Det. Const. Todd Gribbons of the Durham police services.

Only in Toronto's central location are charge levels diminished, where 48 charges were laid for every100,000 people in 2014 and 2015. Sgt. Snow points out that a lack of dependable public transit has a part to play in all of this; plentiful in downtown Toronto, but not in Halton or Durham where residents become more car-dependent because of the lack of public transportation availability as an option.

Ontario Provincial Police had a busy long weekend on the roads, laying numerous impaired-driving, dangerous-driving and stunt-driving charges. (Mark Blinch/Reuters)

"I'd have no problems with what Ontario is doing on criminal and license suspensions if the death rate was falling with it. And it's not", observed Andrew Murie, CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving Canada, of Toronto's declining rate of charges. "It's a major concern, because there's been a dramatic decrease in Ontario's enforcement on impaired driving without the parallel decrease in deaths." 

York Police feel that drunk driving represents a problem which "shows no sign of slowing down". Leading Inspector Slade to despair over what can be attempted by authorities to turn the tide of drunk driving in the opposite direction: "Right now, I'm looking for the answer, and it's not me coming up with it. I thought we were beyond this", he said of a social problem not confined to Toronto, but plaguing society in general; yet of all countries, Canada in particular.

Canada topped a list of 19 wealthy countries struggling with the problem of road deaths linked to alcohol impairment. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention completed a study which indicated that Canada leads its counterpart countries in the percentage of road deaths attributable to alcohol imbibing and driving; in Canada, 33.6 percent of all motor vehicle fatalities involved alcohol, a truly unenviable record.

Driving While Under the Influence of Conversation

"Cellphones, whether we're manipulating them or not, are dangerous while driving motorized vehicles and should possibly be completely banned."
"There are basically no cases in front of the courts that have held a person criminally responsible for the death of another because they were using their cellphones while driving."
"Regardless of the consequences of their actions, the worst a driver found guilty can face is a fine and a few demerit points."
"Mentalities and legislation [need to evolve placing cellphone use on par with driving while inebriated]."
Quebec coroner Renee Roussel, Montreal

Quebec coroner recommends outright banning of cellphone use while driving. Photothèque Le Soleil

"It's almost unthinkable that something like this could happen on that street [ordinarily quiet and safe, where children can walk without fear of danger]."
"I would never want to destroy someone else's life [being charged with manslaughter over causing a death while using a cellphone]. But I do believe in the notion of responsibility."
Sonia Bouchard, daughter of 75-year-old pedestrian Florilda Castonguay

Florilda Castonguay had a habit of taking a late afternoon walk daily, around the vicinity of her home in St-Alexandre-de-Kamouraska, a town northeast of Quebec City. On Sunday, 29 November last year, she embarked on her usual walk at roughly the same time as every other day: before sundown and early enough to enjoy her walk but ensuring she would return home to prepare dinner for herself and her husband.

It was a cold day as late November can be, but the street (typical of most suburban areas where sidewalks are mostly absent on esidential streets in a car-centric society) was crusted with dirty snow and ice at the edges, leaving Mrs. Castonguay to walk closer to the centre of the road than might be usual under other circumstances, though the road wasn't icy underfoot. She was hit from behind at 3:30 p.m., mere seconds after a man driving facing her, noticed her presence ahead, and just as a vehicle drove in the opposite direction, behind her.

That vehicle plowed into the fit and healthy woman. On contact, the car's bumper collided hard with the back of her knees and she tumbled violently over the car. According to witnesses, the driver called 911 and tended to the woman as she lay unconscious in the street. When the ambulance arrived, paramedics assessed her condition and speedily took her to hospital, with a severely fractured skull. By 6:40 p.m., the 75-year-old Florilda Castonguay was pronounced dead.

Police were told by the driver that he had been distracted by his passenger and as a result braked only at the last second, according to the coroner's report. However, the length of the skid marks led police in a different direction; they felt that the car had been driven about 30 kilometres per hour as it hit Mrs. Castonguay and ruled out the potential of the driver having to contend with the sun obscuring his vision, nor were there other vehicles present, to distract him.

With the use of cellphone records in their thorough investigation, it was discovered by police that the driver had been using his cellphone, despite his categorical denials. The records indicated otherwise. The coroner's report had ruled that the death was an accident. On the other hand, the coroner took pains to point out that the law does not sufficiently recognize the potential danger to the public weal when people use cellphones while driving, even though the use of cellphones while driving is illegal.

Coroner Roussel recommended the possibility of technological devices such as jammers cutting off cellphone signals as long as the phone is in a vehicle, to make it impossible for people to use them while driving a vehicle. She pointed out that hands-free Bluetooth systems too, though less hazardous, remain a major distraction to a driver who should be focusing on the road and vehicular and pedestrian traffic, not a conversation.

As for Mrs. Castonguay's family, they are in deep grief mode Her husband had fallen ill following his wife's death. And their daughter has her hands full looking after her bereaved widowed father.

"Cellphones, whether we’re manipulating them or not, are harmful while driving motorized automobiles and will probably be utterly banned" coroner Renée Roussel wrote in her investigation into the death of a seventy-five-year-old Quebec woman. DARRYL DYCK / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Oblivious: Drunk-Driving Decisions

"The CDC [U.S. Centers for Disease Control does the best studies; their information is undebatable."
"It's a wake-up call. We need to do more."
Andy Murie, CEO, MADD Canada

"I will always remember the pain on this man's face when I had to tell him about his friend, and I would love to know if this tragic event has prevented him from drinking and driving again."
"Because if this sad event couldn't stop someone from drinking and driving, what could?"
RCMP Cpl. Janet Leblanc, Nova Scotia

It is disturbingly common in Canada for people to think nothing of driving their vehicle after having imbibed one too many. Even unsteady on their feet, those who feel they are still in control, reject the concern of others to insist they are perfectly capable of getting around on their own. And far too often that personal decision has been impaired by an excess of alcohol which relates in turn, to traffic fatalities.

No one seems immune from this kind of irresponsibility. It is not only young men who think that laws that constrain others don't apply to them. This is a social malady that highly educated people, professionals, and celebrities along with youth indulge in. The mother of Canada's current prime minister was once arrested for driving while under the influence of alcohol; apprehended before she became the cause of an accident.

There is the now-infamous case of a Pembroke-area dentist whose impairment due to alcohol consumption was so severe she could hardly stand on her own, and her erratic driving caused the death of a father of teens. In both those instances, Margaret Trudeau and Christie Natsis, influence and money helped to guide outcomes; Trudeau's case was dismissed, Natsis's was unconscionably prolonged as high-priced lawyers cast doubt on police and expert witnesses.

Postmedia/File   A U.S. study found that while fewer people were dying from motor vehicle crashes in Canada, the proportion of deaths linked to alcohol impairment was 34 per cent, higher than any of the other countries in the survey.

In Canada, it's not all that uncommon to learn that someone who caused the death of another person because of drunk driving had already acquired countless drunk driving charges behind them. Mothers Against Drunk Driving and government agencies at every level attempt to instill in the public an awareness of drunk driving, to dissuade the public from making such choices. Despite which Canada is found to be the advanced country with the worst drunk-driving-causing-death record.

It's always nice to hold a first-ranking, but never of that kind, and Canada must come to terms with the fact that impaired driving represents the top criminal cause of death in the country. Even while fewer people now die from motor vehicle crashes (2013: 5.4 per 100,000), the proportion of deaths with an alcohol impairment causation stands at 34 percent, quite outdistancing any other country surveyed.

That percentage is slighter in the United States, at 31 percent, decreasing to 30 percent for Australia, and 29 percent for France, while countries reflecting lowest percentages of fatal crashes related to alcohol were Israel at 3.2 percent, Japan at 6.2 percent, and Austria at 6.8 percent. The responsibility quotient is obviously seriously canted toward indifference in the higher percentile countries, with the lowest percentile having populations more disciplined in their sense of social and personal accountability.

The public safety minister of the former government has introduced a private member's bill to Parliament which includes a provision permitting mandatory roadside screening. Bill C-225 would as well impose a mandatory minimum sentence of five years as court-mandated sentencing for the personal choice to drive while alcohol-impaired, and ultimately causing the death of another human being.

In Canada, driving with a blood alcohol concentration of over 0.08 represents a Criminal Code offence. Police are allowed to impound vehicles, suspend licences and look to additional administrative sanctions to be imposed against drivers with blood alcohol levels that are just under the threshold, falling in the range of 0.05 to 0.08, considered a "warning" range. In several countries in Europe, 0.05 represents the threshhold.

Predictably enough, the American Beverage Institute speaks of that particular recommendation as "ludicrous", claiming that moderate drinkers would be unfairly targeted, and the process would "criminalize perfectly responsible behaviour", a stupendously puzzling claim since the penchant to drink and drive is anything but responsible behaviour and if 'moderate' drinkers consume alcohol and then choose to drive, their behaviour is clearly criminal.

On the website for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Cpl. Janet Leblanc wrote about an episode of such a poor choice she was personally aware of and involved with. Two close friends had been out drinking in a bar. Each left the bar and drove their vehicles while intoxicated. They were both involved in separate collisions. One of the good friends survived his alcohol-caused accident, the other failed to.

Postmedia/File   Police pull drivers over as part of Ontario's anti-drinking and driving RIDE program.

High On Pot

"[The effects of cannabis are cognitively based] They're in your head. And you can see effects on things like concentration. When you're driving you have to concentrate on a million different things at once, but you can't switch your attention as easily [high on pot]."
"[When governments introduced the 0.08 blood limit for alcohol] we probably made a mistake. What we did essentially was tell people it was OK to drive after drinking [as long as the limit wasn't exceeded. Decades later] we're pondering the same question, and whether we set a limit, any limit, whatever it might be, for cannabis, we're still saying to people, 'It's still OK to go out and smoke cannabis and drive. Just don't get over that limit'."
"What we need to do is create a culture where driving after smoking cannabis is just not OK."
Doug Beirness, vice-chairman, Canadian Society of Forensic Science

Justin Tang/The Canadian Press    A woman takes part in the annual marijuana rally on Parliament Hill on April 20, 2016.

"There is no concentration -- no matter how high or low -- that we can use to reliably predict impairment in a driver."
Jake Nelson, director of traffic safety advocacy and research American Automobile Association

Postmedia News  Twenty per cent of Canadians who drive while high say nothing will make them stop.

Now that Canada is getting set to legalize marijuana possession and use, the question arises how to formally ensure through appropriate laws that a substance whose use will temporarily alter a user's capacity to think and react normally, doesn't constitute a potential menace on the highway? Just as alcohol consumption and driving don't mix, neither will the intake of recreational drugs and driving. Society knows well enough that alcohol and driving cause carnage on the road. Depending on people to be sensible and sensitive to the safety and security of other people is quite often a lost cause.

But now, in Canada a scientific advisory committee is in the process of preliminary work toward advising the government on how to arrive at what will be considered a 'safe' range of THC in the bloodstream, for driving purposes. THC is the major psychoactive component of marijuana. International literature is being studied by the advisory committee to try to ascertain what a consensus on appropriate blood-level limits might be.

Several states in the U.S. have set THC limits for safe driving. Those limits range from one nanogram of THC per millilitre of blood, to five. In other states the presence of any level of THC is forbidden. "What a lot of people want is a number for Canada. It's a legal shortcut. It means that the prosecutor does not have to prove that the person's ability to operate a vehicle is impaired. It's a given -- if you're over this number, it's a given you're impaired", pointed out Doug Beirness who is also a senior research associate for the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.

His concern is that in setting a legal THC limit a message would be conveyed to drug users that it is safe, within circumscribed limits, to drive while high. He points out that the effects of liquor are "profoundly physical", resulting in slurred speech, imbalance, warped motor co-ordination for example, while the effects of cannabis use are centred in the head; cognitively based. In a State Farm survey of 3,000 Canadians of driving age across Canada, almost nine of ten respondents claimed never to have driven under the influence of marijuana.

On the other hand, 44 percent of people who do drive while high feel they are capable of driving safely. According to Jake Nelson of the AAA, other research has indicated that many motorists believe marijuana "isn't that unsafe". And also go so far as to believe that the use of marijuana results in better driving.  The American Automobile Association sponsored a study to compare drivers testing positive for THC to drug-free 'controls'. Researchers studied how well THC concentrations correlated, or not, with scores on roadside sobriety tests by trained drug recognition experts.

Darren Calabrese/National Post     Police in Canada have been able to demand roadside sobriety tests on suspected drugged-drivers since 2008.

Weed-positive drivers, it turns out, were likelier to exhibit physical signs of being high, and they performed less well on -walk-and-turn' tests and one-leg stand tests. They also experienced greater misses on the finger-to-nose-test. The conclusion was reached nonetheless that "neither the walk-and-turn, nor one-leg stand tests demonstrated increasing rates of error as a function of THC concentration", according to the report. The significant difference was the finger-to-nose test where drivers with  higher THC concentrations found it more difficult to reach their noses.

Researchers found as well that minimal differences existed between people with THC levels above or below five nanograms. Just as some people 'hold their liquor well', and become less impaired than others who drink less but are more physically affected, the same can be said for pot users. Using a figure where it is believed those who have indulged in cannabis can safely drive is an arbitrary figure since people are affected differently. Which brings us right back to Mr. Beirness's conclusion that "What we need to do is create a culture where driving after smoking cannabis is just not OK".

And good luck on that one.