Ship of Fools: Drug testing welfare recipients

Thread: Drug testing welfare recipients Board: Purgatory / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Ian Climacus (# 944) on :

Government to introduce legislation.

quote:
Those who initially test positive to cannabis, ice or ecstasy will have 80 per cent of their welfare payment quarantined onto "basics cards", which can only be used for certain purchases such as rent, childcare and food.

A second positive test would see the welfare recipient charged for the cost of the test, and referred for treatment.

I've read of drug testing programmes in NZ and some states of the USA, though these appear rather different. From what I understand, and happy to be proven wrong, the US system has had few positive tests for those in its Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programme, and the cost per test ranges from $43 (Mississippi) to $1,148 (!!! - Missouri).

NZ appears to cut payments if you test positive a few times, or you can "confess" and get help. If I read correctly, the tests only apply to pre-employment screening in certain industries. Our tests will apply to students and job seekers.

An instant reaction is drugs are illegal and (my) taxes should not be supporting an illegal habit. But I know it's more complicated than that.

Will it demonise people? Will it lead to crime if 80% of their payment is locked away on a card that can only buy necessities? Can someone on a card be discriminated against, or feel lesser due to using it? Is it a ham-fisted attempt to solve a problem that needs nuanced and careful consideration?

Or is this a needed first step?

Thoughts? Experiences? Comments?

Posted by simontoad (# 18096) on :

I don't know why they don't try running properly funded assistance programmes instead of this stuff.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

The American experience is that such programs are incredibly ineffective yet expensive, serve to add another level of bureaucracy to an already complicated process, and are largely in place to humiliate and degrade poor people (with the racial overtones anything dealing with poor people in the U.S. always seems to carry).

The technical issues involved are that most illegal drugs pass through the body quickly enough to be undetectable by urinalysis 24-48 hours later. Because most users of illegal drugs are able to abstain for a two day period if they know they're going to be tested, or that there's a possibility of them being tested, American programs along these lines have detected very few drug users. (By "very few" I mean in the single digits, or sometimes the low double digits.)

On the other hand this kind of make-work program can be very lucrative for laboratory testing and pharmaceutical companies. The amount of money spent on testing is usually several orders of magnitude greater than the amount recovered by cutting off benefits to the half dozen or so drug users that test positive, even in cases where there's a total benefit cut-off rather than the diversion of funds to tighter control in the proposed program.

In other words, such programs are typically huge boondoggles that serve a secondary purpose of reminding welfare beneficiaries that they can be subjected to humiliation at the hands of the state any time someone in power feels like it, or can just make a quick buck off the process.

Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :

In Michigan, the provisional drug testing requirement, found, I think, a total of two drug users...at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars. So other than lining the pockets of drug testing company CEOs and giving John and Jane Doe the pleasure of poor- shaming their less prosperous neighbors, I don't see any real benefit.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The American experience is that such programs are incredibly ineffective yet expensive, serve to add another level of bureaucracy to an already complicated process, and are largely in place to humiliate and degrade poor people (with the racial overtones anything dealing with poor people in the U.S. always seems to carry).

This. You can compare it to the various voter ID laws. On the surface, it seems reasonable to check that voters are who they claim to be, and it seems reasonable to check that the taxpayer isn't supporting your meth habit.

But in practice, neither of these things are even vaguely significant problems, but are a smokescreen for something else.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

They may not have loaves nor fishes unless they first pee into a cup. What end do they think they are going to accomplish by this? Are they looking to punish? to make people feel badly? to make it so people avoid collecting welfare for fear of stigmatization?

[ridiculous idea]
I wonder if an entrepreneur might profitably provide vials of urine, which are guaranteed to be free from the vile substances the gov't hates. If I was there, perhaps "Grandma's Urine" would be the name of my business, offering the finest and purest pee, pissed out by the most contented of grandmothers who drink only tea. Though, if they actually watch these awful welfare bums pee into the cup (like they do for Olympic drugs tests), then perhaps we'll have to come up with a robo-pisser apparatus with hose attachment, perhaps squeezed like a bagpipe at the right time or operated via smart phone app. An aiming system might also be needed, perhaps camera equipped for precise aiming.
[/perhaps not as ridiculous as I thought, and if anyone develops it, I want royalties]

[ 23. August 2017, 04:10: Message edited by: no prophet's flag is set so... ]

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

This policy will be popular with those that have an image of welfare queens and scroungers squandering the State's resources on drugs. It plays to the Victorian idea of the undeserving poor who need to be taken into hand and managed.

It won't achieve anything positive for all the reasons explained by others and will likely do harm to self-esteem, relationships, and, ironically, represents policy makers squandering resources on their addiction to political grandstanding. If only we had a urine test for that before entry to legislative bodies.

Posted by Ian Climacus (# 944) on :

Thanks all for the comments, and the experiences in the US (and the technical issues Crœsos).

I had not thought of racial profiling. Canterbury-Bankstown, the area the trial is occurring in, has a large Middle Eastern and Asian population, but I fear the emphasis here is more on the poor and out-of-work as "bludgers" and deserving of checks on their behaviour. Rather worrying as has been said above.

The quick buck is an interesting view from the side of the administrators, especially given the costs involved.

Can't answer your questions no prophet. I like your business idea, though! [Smile]

Posted by Ian Climacus (# 944) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
If only we had a urine test for that before entry to legislative bodies.

I did see a tweet saying the good burghers of our PM's electorate (a very wealthy one) should probably be first to be drug tested as they must've been off their heads to vote for him.

I'd expect an outcry from them if we put your suggestion into place mdijon...

[ 23. August 2017, 06:32: Message edited by: Ian Climacus ]

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

There are already provisions, at least in NSW, for drug testing of drivers, much along the lines of testing for blood alcohol content. I assume that similar equipment can be used for those suspected of diverting the money that is meant to feed the poor little ones into drug use????

The programme is just plain stupid though. It may look good to some in the community, but the impracticability must be obvious even to the current batch of government ministers.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
the impracticability must be obvious even to the current batch of government ministers.

Possibly they don't care provided the politics are good. By the way testing for drugs is more complicated than for alcohol. Alcohol is volatile and can be detected in breath, and it's only one substance. Drugs include many different substances and their detection in urine (or blood) requires more complicated stuff than alcohol.

Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :

I can't believe I'm saying this, but what Croesos said.

Also, urine tests are ridiculously easy to cheat (sorry no prophet, but I don't think your business would be profitable, at least not in the US).

At best, it's a gigantic waste of money. At worst, it's a humiliating reminder that the state considers some people its property.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

I have seen newspaper references to some recent cases here where people have been charged with driving under the influence of drugs where the principal evidence has been of urine testing. My memory is that those cases resulted in convictions.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

I'm not saying it can't be done accurately, just that it can't be done in a cheap and cheerful way like alcohol breath testing.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

Certainly cheerful for those who pass the test. We've had random breath testing for 35 or so years now. My memory is that the drug tests are only given to those who have been in an accident or for some other reason come to attention.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
I have seen newspaper references to some recent cases here where people have been charged with driving under the influence of drugs where the principal evidence has been of urine testing. My memory is that those cases resulted in convictions.

If you've taken drugs recently enough to still be impaired when you're pulled over for a traffic violation, you've taken them recently enough for them to show up in urinalysis. (See my previous post for the kind of time window typically involved.) This almost certainly won't be the case for most of those being tested under the proposed program, who will know in advance that they'll be tested (or at least that they run the chance of being randomly selected for testing).

The biggest exception to this general rule is marijuana, where chronic use can be detected for up to a month after last use. So in practical terms programs like this tend to be de facto marijuana hunts. I'm not sure that it can be convincingly argued that pot use, particularly and specifically, requires these kind exceptionally expensive and intrusive measures to prevent (but only for poor people).

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
If you've taken drugs recently enough to still be impaired when you're pulled over for a traffic violation, you've taken them recently enough for them to show up in urinalysis.

This is a tangent to your point, but the converse won't be true. That is that drugs may be detectable in urine (or metabolites that are tested for might be) at a point where the effect has worn off.

Also it is very hard to be precise about the quantity of drug, as the concentration in urine depends a lot on how much fluid is being cleared and how efficient the kidneys are at excreting the drug.

[ 23. August 2017, 14:39: Message edited by: mdijon ]

Posted by Ethne Alba (# 5804) on :

Well i don't know about welfare recipients, but over here in the UK i would (quite genuinely) like some folk subjected to testing:
* local councillors
* MPs
* anyone working on the stock exchange
* anyone who lobbies at Westminster.

That should sort some chaff out...for starters.
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[ 23. August 2017, 16:18: Message edited by: Ethne Alba ]

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

I think testing elected officials is pretty daft. If they're doing drugs and still doing a good job it's none of my business. If they're doing a terrible job then I want them gone whether they're on drugs or not, and the ballot box is the place to make that happen. I don't think anyone was served by Charles Kennedy's alcohol problem being splashed (if you'll pardon the pun) across the front pages.

Posted by Ethne Alba (# 5804) on :

CK was far from my mind.

However various people ..... Who Are Not Welfare Recipients ..... were In my mind. People who have a high profile. Who have responsibility. And in the case of the traders, those who had a positively hedonistic lifestyle and then caused chaos at the stock exchange.

What's all this about checking up on the lifestyles of onlywelfare recipients?
(we call such money transactions "benefit" in the UK, but hey....)
Why not open such intrusion out....?

In the UK we seem to have inherited the very worst of opinions from across the pond.

Those who have to rely on benefit...are not all scroungers or addicts and we would do well to remember that.

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

My only advice to you, if you undertake the (entirely laudable) step of applying the same intrusive tests to the legislators as they're imposing upon the helpless and unwilling populace, is that you force the legislators to pay for the tests out of their own pocket. Also they must be tested in the same way, at the same facility or office. That gives them what we Americans term skin in the game. They too must be ushered into a stall to tinkle onto the strip or into the jar, while a bored attendant waits outside to be sure they don't swap jars or pour cola onto the strip. Let them fully feel that pain.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
If you've taken drugs recently enough to still be impaired when you're pulled over for a traffic violation, you've taken them recently enough for them to show up in urinalysis.
This is a tangent to your point, but the converse won't be true. That is that drugs may be detectable in urine (or metabolites that are tested for might be) at a point where the effect has worn off.

Also it is very hard to be precise about the quantity of drug, as the concentration in urine depends a lot on how much fluid is being cleared and how efficient the kidneys are at excreting the drug.

I suppose that it's rather like the alcohol tests. Just as the offence is driving with more than the prescribed content of alcohol in the blood, as opposed to driving under the influence of alcohol , the offence is driving with the drug traces in your blood.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

The difference is that with alcohol the breath test (or blood alcohol test) tests the thing that matters - the alcohol in the blood. There is a direct relationship between alcohol levels in the blood and neurological effect. A heavy user can become increasingly tolerant to these effects, but the point is the biologically active thing is being measured at the point at which it has its effect.

With drug testing on urine, firstly the drug is being tested at the point at which it's been eliminated from the system and secondly it is often a metabolite that is being detected that may not be biologically active anymore.

Cannabis is a good example where urine tests stay positive for many days, long after any drug effect has worn off. Cocaine also has an effect for an hour or so but remains in the urine for a day or two.

With alcohol as soon as you have eliminated the alcohol from your blood then the breath test is negative.

Posted by simontoad (# 18096) on :

In Victoria we've had drug tests for drivers for - I'm going to guess - about a decade. It's a saliva test. I've seen combined booze and drug testing stations, but they have never pulled me in to the drug testing bit. I'm a bit offended by that. In fact, it's a trigger for a story, so bear with me.

In 1990, I and my girlfriend caught a bus from Amsterdam to Paris. We sat near the front, and after a short while, the telltale whiff of dope smoke penetrated through the bus. The driver used his bus phone.

Surprise, surprise when we got to the French border, the bus drove into the customs area. Everyone had to get off the bus, the luggage was unloaded and everyone collected their bag and we sat down and waited while French customs went through everybody's stuff. Everybody that is except me and my girlfriend. The guy took one look at us and our luggage and ordered us back on the bus. I have never been so ashamed in my life.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Cannabis is a good example where urine tests stay positive for many days, long after any drug effect has worn off. Cocaine also has an effect for an hour or so but remains in the urine for a day or two.

According to newspaper reports, several defendants have run that sort of defence, with a complete lack of success. As I said, the offence is driving with it, regardless of any drug effect, and simontoad gives some history. I can't say when the drug tests were introduced in NSW. Random blood alcohol tests are now about 45 years old.

The whole theory is that it makes a prosecution so much simpler. Before the pca tests, a police officer would have to give evidence about observed behaviour and then be cross-examined up hill and down dale on that evidence. Convictions were not all that common. With the pca, it's very rare for there to be an acquittal. The introduction of the test, along with other safety requirements at about the same time - eg compulsory waring of seat belts - saw a dramatic drop in the number of road fatalities, and it's extremely unlikely that any government would repeal it. There's no assertion that I'm aware of that there's been a drop in road fatalities with the drug testing, but again, it would be surprising were the tests to be abandoned.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Cannabis is a good example where urine tests stay positive for many days, long after any drug effect has worn off. Cocaine also has an effect for an hour or so but remains in the urine for a day or two.

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
According to newspaper reports, several defendants have run that sort of defence, with a complete lack of success. As I said, the offence is driving with it, regardless of any drug effect, and simontoad gives some history.

I don't know about those court instances. If a driver is driving erratically and in addition has a positive urine test for a substance, it seems to me that the fact the drug in his/her urine might on theoretical grounds not necessarily be associated with the erratic driving is a weak defence and the case would be strong. And given the suspicion occasioned by erratic driving it seems proportionate to test for drugs.

If one conducts a random test on a motorist stopped for a tail-light offence then it seems to me not proportionate to test for drugs, and any positive result in urine wouldn't be good evidence of driving under the influence.

Having said that saliva is different to urine. Saliva is a much better reflection of tissue levels of a compound than urine is, and is much closer to the blood concentrations reflecting "under the influence" than urine. If one was testing for a metabolite that wasn't biologically active there is a problem in relating that to "under the influence.

One can increase the precision with which use is known by measuring the metabolites and the active drug. In simple terms, a lot of active drug and a few immediate metabolites is likely to indicate recent use. A lot of long-term metabolites and no active drug is unlikely to indicate recent use.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I don't know about those court instances. If a driver is driving erratically and in addition has a positive urine test for a substance, it seems to me that the fact the drug in his/her urine might on theoretical grounds not necessarily be associated with the erratic driving is a weak defence and the case would be strong. And given the suspicion occasioned by erratic driving it seems proportionate to test for drugs.

But as I said, the offence is not related to the manner of driving but to driving with either more than the prescribed content of alcohol in blood, or with illegal drugs showing up in testing. The defence which was unsuccessfully attempted was to say that while the drug may have been present, it had no effect on the driving. This page will give a quick outline of what's permitted, what's not.

I only know of the drug cases via newspaper reports. They have been before the lowest level criminal courts. I'm not aware of any appeal to a superior court, which would be properly reported.

Random tests do not depend upon an accident or any other matter. You are driving along, and with other drivers are drawn to the kerb. The test's administered and if there's a positive result, you're taken to the local station for charging etc.

[ 25. August 2017, 11:48: Message edited by: Gee D ]

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

In the sense that use and possession of those drugs is illegal I understand the internal consistency of that approach. But I'd say it doesn't seem logical to target drivers for random checks that, for reasons given above, don't have a strong relationship with being under the influence.

Why not have spot checks in offices, churches and pedestrian crossings as well?

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

To go back to your "disproportionate" remarks - there is no disproportion as the offence is not the tail lamp one but driving with more than the prescribed content of alcohol in your bloodstream.

The introduction of random breath-testing here in the early 1970s had a very great correlation with a substantial and rapid drop in the numbers of road fatalities. The introduction of the breath-testing did coincide with other measures, such as the compulsory wearing of seat belts, which probably contributed as well. The drop also occurred in the deaths of pedestrians, for whom these other measures were irrelevant. Not absolutely conclusive proof, but enough for most people.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

If the law allows or mandates random tests then the grounds are irrelevant, I agree.

I'm very much more in favour of random breath alcohol tests than random drug tests simply because the correlation between alcohol in breath and driving under the influence is extremely close. So it seems fair enough to say anyone testing positive above a certain limit is driving irresponsibly. I can well believe that deterring drivers from drinking alcohol has reduced the accident rate.

I would be against random drugs testing of drivers for the reasons described above that make a correlation between positive tests and driving under the influence quite weak. If the point is simply to clamp down on drug use because drugs are bad then there is no logic in going after drivers. The population should just as logically be subjected to random testing in the street, in churches, cafes and any public place.

Posted by Ian Climacus (# 944) on :

NSW Police conduct road drug tests orally via swiping the tongue. A saliva test is done on a positive result. Does that change your view?

[ 26. August 2017, 05:31: Message edited by: Ian Climacus ]

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

"Mobile Drug Testing (MDT) operates alongside RBT for alcohol and police also have the power to test drivers they believe may be under the influence of illegal or prescription drugs."

I'm fine with testing of drivers who are driving erratically. It's the completely random testing of drivers that bothers me more.

Posted by Ian Climacus (# 944) on :

Oh, I see. So even random alcohol tests are problematic, in your view? Only those swerving or speeding should be stopped?

I'm on the other side...happy to be tested anytime. But I think I see your view.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ian Climacus:
Oh, I see. So even random alcohol tests are problematic, in your view? Only those swerving or speeding should be stopped?

I'm on the other side...happy to be tested anytime. But I think I see your view.

I think most people here would be quite happy with random testing. After all, it's been in place for 45 years or more and people are accustomed to it, and then on top of that there was the high correlation between the introduction of the testing and the drop in road deaths.

Mdijon, you seem caught on driving under the influence rather than looking at the offence of driving with more than the prescribed content in the blood. The driving under the influence offences remain, but for the reasons I've given are simply not used.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

No, not exactly what I think (to both of you).

With alcohol I'm happy with random testing because there is a very close relationship between alcohol on the breath and being under the influence.

It's therefore reasonable to write a law that says more than x level of alcohol plus driving equals offence, and to mandate police to test for that randomly.

(There's a separate question though about how you stop that being abused to harass people, but I'll leave that aside to discuss the principle here).

With drugs there are plenty of drugs like cannabis which remain in the system for weeks. So writing a law that says a certain level of cannabis plus driving equals an offence is pretty much like saying we don't want people who smoke the occasional joint to ever drive.

If we are motivated by road safety then that doesn't seem a proportionate response.

If we're doing that because people who take drugs should be caught in any way possible, then fair enough but we should take it to its logical conclusion and test the whole population randomly whenever we conveniently can.

Personally I wouldn't want that, but if we really want the war on drugs that's the way to go.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

If even the smallest amount of a drug in your blood impairs your ability to drive (or, do other things which could potentially impact the health and safety of others) then it makes sense that driving in that condition is an offense - it makes no sense to me to have the law to be different for alcohol and other substances. The question is actually one of whether tests that can be easily administered by the police (at the road side or back in the station) actually reflect the amount of the active drug in blood - breath tests for alcohol are generally accepted, but can be followed by blood tests if needed. Urine tests for many drugs don't generally correlate with blood concentrations at the time of the test. Blood tests tend to be much more accurate, but also harder to administer (much more invasive than peeing in a pot or taking a saliva swab, plus you need to have procedures for handling sharps, and in many places a minimal level of medical training to take blood).

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

Here I'd just be happy if they tested people driving off from the bar at 11pm.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
- it makes no sense to me to have the law to be different for alcohol and other substances.

Not even for the drug dynamics and kinetics I described above?

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
- it makes no sense to me to have the law to be different for alcohol and other substances.
Not even for the drug dynamics and kinetics I described above?

The important dynamic is common to alcohol and drugs. When present in the blood stream they impair the ability to drive, and thus create a hazard to other people. Therefore, if you have a law that states it is illegal to drive with more than 50mg alcohol per 100ml of blood, there shouldn't be a different form of the law for other intoxicating substances - a legal limit for how much tetrahydrocannabinol per 100ml of blood would create a similar impediment to driving safely, for example.

The question about how you devise a means of testing for and quantifying THC, or other active compounds for other drugs, is a separate issue to do with enforcement of the law rather than the law itself.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

That's kinda the point though. It's very difficult to define that intoxicating limit in a situation where there is cross-reaction with metabolites that aren't intoxicating.

I agree that were we in a situation where one could do a test with a close relationship with intoxicating blood levels of drugs as there is for alcohol there would be no logic in a different law.

But we aren't, and therefore to write that off as an enforcement issue when it is essential to confront the issue of inactive metabolites vs active drugs and their distinction in the tests used in framing the law seems head-in-the-sand about a salient point.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
That's kinda the point though. It's very difficult to define that intoxicating limit in a situation where there is cross-reaction with metabolites that aren't intoxicating.

But we aren't, and therefore to write that off as an enforcement issue when it is essential to confront the issue of inactive metabolites vs active drugs and their distinction in the tests used in framing the law seems head-in-the-sand about a salient point.

Of course it is difficult to define a point, and perhaps different for each person. The limits set out in the table I linked to are no doubt arbitrary, but a value of an arbitrary limit is that it is easily capable of testing and is non-discriminatory, points which are much harder to make for the old tests for driving under the influence.

Randomness - there is the capacity to harass any particular person should the police wish to do so. Other remedies are available to deal with any such behaviour. But here, every driver involved in an accident to which police are called is tested (subject to any medical issue arising from injury of course, and that is dealt with by blood sample). Otherwise, the common testing is that traffic is proceeding along a road and comes to a testing point. A half dozen drivers are drawn over, tested, and those that pass are sent on their way. Another half dozen are drawn over and so forth. A bit of a nuisance but an accepted one. Those that don't pass find themselves chauffeured to a police station for a blood test and charging.

Your position seems strange to me, a person who has spent most of his adult life with breath-testing in place. It reminds me of the great campaign for road safety in the US in the early 1970s. At great expense, cars were fitted with gadgets to remind people to fasten seatbelts and so forth, but not one bit of legislation to make it compulsory to actually wear a simple device of proven ability to reduce the extent of injury. It was said to be an infringement of civil liberty.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
That's kinda the point though. It's very difficult to define that intoxicating limit in a situation where there is cross-reaction with metabolites that aren't intoxicating.

No, it's easy to define the limit: x mg/100ml of THC (or other intoxicating compounds). What is almost certainly difficult is measuring that concentration. Especially if tests are indirect, measuring metabolites for example.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:

Your position seems strange to me, a person who has spent most of his adult life with breath-testing in place.

mdijon's position on drug-driving seems reasonable to me. AIUI what he's getting at is the situation where someone has a spliff on Monday, is cognitively unimpaired by Wednesday, drives out of the house, and is picked up by a random spot-check which finds traces of cannabis still in his urine. He is then prosecuted for drug-driving.

Is your position:

a.) If he's got traces of cannabis in his urine, then by definition he's driving under the influence of cannabis; or

b.) Tough luck, he shouldn't have been taking cannabis in the first place?

Because (a) is (AIUI) contrary to the science and if your view is (b) then why just limit random testing to motorists?

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

Perhaps the future of testing is not trying to test for drugs or alcohol but to test instead for cognitive impairment - police carry a laptop (perhaps with VR goggles) and run a hazard perception and reaction test if they have reason to be concerned about someone's ability to drive. Change the charge to one of "driving while unfit" and you deal with the drunks, the drugged up, those who should have surrendered their licence due to age, and those who shouldn't be driving because they're ill or sleep deprived. You could make the software widely available and people could test before leaving a pub or restaurant. Then it becomes entirely about whether you're safe to drive.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

I'm simply stating what the position here is and has been for 45 or more years now in the case of alcohol and more recently for at least cannabis - perhaps other drugs, I don't know. And as I've said many times to mdijon, the offence is not driving under the influence DUI, but driving with more than the prescribed content of alcohol in your blood. The separation from the old DUI days is made clear if you look at the table I linked to. The prescribed content for learner drivers and those on their P plates is zero. I'd be very surprised if someone with an alcohol content of 0.01 could be said to be under the influence.

As to your last sentence, you cannot legally drive on a public road unless you have a licence. It is an inherently dangerous activity and the imposition of a whole range of restrictions is a legitimate government function.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Perhaps the future of testing is not trying to test for drugs or alcohol but to test instead for cognitive impairment - police carry a laptop (perhaps with VR goggles) and run a hazard perception and reaction test if they have reason to be concerned about someone's ability to drive.

The issue being one of time. To run such a test, which is a high-tech version of the existing sobriety tests of walking a straight line etc, would take a lot more time than a breathalyser test. The move towards quicker tests was that the police have better things to do than spend half an hour or more running such tests every time they pull over someone who has been driving erratically.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
No, it's easy to define the limit: x mg/100ml of THC (or other intoxicating compounds). What is almost certainly difficult is measuring that concentration. Especially if tests are indirect, measuring metabolites for example.

Exactly. And it seems to me that an easily defined but unmeasurable limit is not a useful practical basis for framing legislation.

Ricardus has my position in a nutshell - wish I'd written what he'd written.

GeeD, I'm fine with breath testing. It's the illogicalities in the position on drug testing that I'm questioning.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

I do not understand what illogicalities there may or may not be in the drug testing, but either way ignores the offence. That is not driving under the influence, either of alcohol or cannabis, but driving with x amount in the blood.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

I'm suggesting the law should be framed differently from how you say it is currently framed. For the reasons I described earlier, the definition of the offence seems illogical to me. I realise that once the law is written the implementation has to be consistent with that, what I'm suggesting is that it has been written wrongly.

Posted by simontoad (# 18096) on :

The offence in Victoria, AIUI, is not related to whether you are pissed or shitfaced in some manner, but whether you yourself are in a condition proscribed by legislation when driving a car. Gee has said this a number of times, and yet the phrase "under the influence", or variations like "perfectly OK to drive" keep cropping up.

You are allowed to walk down the street in that condition, you're allowed to ride on public transport, as long as you behave yourself. You can't ride a bike on the road in that condition, nor, as a mate of mine found out, can you ride a lawn mower down to the pub and through the drive-through. You do achieve legend status for doing that last one.

The difference between driving a car, as distinct from riding a bike or other combustion vehicle very slowly down the road, is that you CAN BLOODY KILL SOMEONE. Now you might well say that if you smoke a Cumberland Carrot on a Sunday night, then you are perfectly OK to drive your four-wheeled death machine to KFC two days later. Personally, I'd like to see the evidence. My lived experience suggests otherwise. I don't know how many times I didn't notice a traffic light, a turn arrow, or went up the wrong side of the street as a younger driver. I even one night became convinced that a dinosaur was crossing the road ahead of me and slammed on the brakes. My passengers were happy to get home that night. In my defence, it was windy.

[ 27. August 2017, 11:33: Message edited by: simontoad ]

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
mdijon's position on drug-driving seems reasonable to me. AIUI what he's getting at is the situation where someone has a spliff on Monday, is cognitively unimpaired by Wednesday, drives out of the house, and is picked up by a random spot-check which finds traces of cannabis still in his urine. He is then prosecuted for drug-driving.

I agree with this. Driving whilst not being impaired by drugs, but having consumed drugs in the recent past, should not be a crime (or perhaps it should be the same crime as having used the illegal drugs at all).

Historically, thresholds haven't mattered to much to drug testing people. If you get a positive test for illegal drugs, you fail, and get fired / don't get hired / whatever.

In an environment where medicinal or recreational use of certain drugs is permitted, this is obviously far from acceptable.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
The offence in Victoria, AIUI, is not related to whether you are pissed or shitfaced in some manner, but whether you yourself are in a condition proscribed by legislation when driving a car. Gee has said this a number of times, and yet the phrase "under the influence", or variations like "perfectly OK to drive" keep cropping up.

Well, yes. We understand what GeeD has said. We (or at least I) think it has no relation at all to any kind of justice, and is about as reasonable as a law proscribing driving whilst wearing yellow.

The reason that driving under the influence of whatever substance is a problem is that it impairs your driving. As you point out,

quote:

YOU CAN BLOODY KILL SOMEONE.

We agree. The question then becomes at what times in your cycle of recreational substance usage are your chances of BLOODY KILLING SOMEONE significantly increased.

quote:
Now you might well say that if you smoke a Cumberland Carrot on a Sunday night, then you are perfectly OK to drive your four-wheeled death machine to KFC two days later.

Yes, that's the question. I've never smoked any kind of carrot, but my recollection of my college days is that those of us who did indulge and those who didn't were pretty indistinguishable in lectures the next day.

Which is beside the point - making law by anecdote is a decidedly bad idea. The effects of alcohol on driving are well known and well measured, and inform the setting of legal limits. A similar effort for other intoxicants is required.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
Gee has said this a number of times, and yet the phrase "under the influence", or variations like "perfectly OK to drive" keep cropping up.

I get the way the account of the way the law is currently written, what I'm discussing is whether the law is logically consistent.

The point about "under the influence" is to draw a distinction between the situation where someone has smoked some cannabis, is currently a bit happy, and shouldn't really be behind a wheel... and the situation where someone smoked some cannabis last week, has been sober for 6 and a half days, and yet has cannabis metabolites in their urine and would fail a drugs test.

In a sense it's fine to say they are a drug user, and if that is an offence they can be charged for it, but the logic of saying that is anything to do with driving safety seems lacking.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
The offence in Victoria, AIUI, is not related to whether you are pissed or shitfaced in some manner, but whether you yourself are in a condition proscribed by legislation when driving a car. Gee has said this a number of times, and yet the phrase "under the influence", or variations like "perfectly OK to drive" keep cropping up.
Well, yes. We understand what GeeD has said. We (or at least I) think it has no relation at all to any kind of justice, and is about as reasonable as a law proscribing driving whilst wearing yellow.

I'm far from sure that at least until the last hour or so "we understand" has been at all obvious from some posts. There's been a constant reference to erratic driving etc, a complete irrelevance as you now accept.

As to the end of the section I've quoted, any explanation for the correlation between the initial legislation and the substantial drop in road deaths I've referred to?

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
Personally, I'd like to see the evidence.

I missed this bit earlier. There is evidence and it's an interesting read if you wade through. And it isn't straightforward. Although the immediate intoxicating effects of cannabis seem to wear off in a matter of hours, there is lots of evidence (albeit mostly in small studies) that other effects on attention and decision making are very long lasting. Some even get worse on abstinence.

I'm not sure what to make of it though, because again the logical precautionary response would be a life-time ban on on anyone who has ever habitually used cannabis. I'm not sure anyone would want that.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
As to the end of the section I've quoted, any explanation for the correlation between the initial legislation and the substantial drop in road deaths I've referred to?

Deterring alcohol and drug use prior to driving are both quite likely candidates. If we gave life-time driving bans to anyone with drink or drug related offences we would probably also improve road safety. Raising the minimum age of license holding would also improve road safety.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
No, it's easy to define the limit: x mg/100ml of THC (or other intoxicating compounds). What is almost certainly difficult is measuring that concentration. Especially if tests are indirect, measuring metabolites for example.
Exactly. And it seems to me that an easily defined but unmeasurable limit is not a useful practical basis for framing legislation.

Though, that is the way the law (in the UK at least, AIUI) is framed, whether or not the active component of a drug (with a list that includes several legal drugs) exceeds a given concentration in blood. Which will always be measureable - the necessary equipment is widely available, but it would need collecting a blood sample and sending it to a lab for analysis (with potentially several days for a result).

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

My understanding is that in the UK there needs to be a reason for the test. If you take someone who has just driven into a tree and test them for drugs then the pre-test probability of dealing with someone who is actually intoxicated is higher than if you select someone at random.

Hence, although we know there are imperfections in interpreting drug levels and metabolites, the likelihood that one is genuinely dealing with a road safety issue is higher than if people are just chosen at random.

Posted by simontoad (# 18096) on :

both is even better, huh?

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
I'm far from sure that at least until the last hour or so "we understand" has been at all obvious from some posts. There's been a constant reference to erratic driving etc, a complete irrelevance as you now accept.

Erratic driving etc. is irrelevant to your ass-backward law. But that's because the way you presented your law has no relation to actual justice.

The reason for having laws about driving under the influence of various substances is that they impair your driving - they make you more dangerous. If you (and "you" here has to mean an average person) do not show significant impairment with a certain concentration of some intoxicant in your blood, there is no justification for making it illegal to drive with that level of intoxication present.

So if a person would fail whatever drug test is mandated in NSW, or the whole of Australia, or wherever, but does not have impaired driving, then the law, and the test, is unjust.

You might argue with some degree of reasonableness that illegal drugs are illegal anyway, and you don't much care about being a bit unjust to users of illegal drugs.

You cannot make that argument in an environment where drug use is legal.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
both is even better, huh?

Both what?

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
I'm far from sure that at least until the last hour or so "we understand" has been at all obvious from some posts. There's been a constant reference to erratic driving etc, a complete irrelevance as you now accept.
Erratic driving etc. is irrelevant to your ass-backward law. But that's because the way you presented your law has no relation to actual justice.

The reason for having laws about driving under the influence of various substances is that they impair your driving - they make you more dangerous. If you (and "you" here has to mean an average person) do not show significant impairment with a certain concentration of some intoxicant in your blood, there is no justification for making it illegal to drive with that level of intoxication present.

So if a person would fail whatever drug test is mandated in NSW, or the whole of Australia, or wherever, but does not have impaired driving, then the law, and the test, is unjust.

You might argue with some degree of reasonableness that illegal drugs are illegal anyway, and you don't much care about being a bit unjust to users of illegal drugs.

You cannot make that argument in an environment where drug use is legal.

What would you say about the very strict laws here on gun ownership? And what is unjust about testing for alcohol/drug testing, when the evidence is of the substantial drop in the numbers of road deaths after the introduction of random testing?

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
What would you say about the very strict laws here on gun ownership?

I'm more or less in favour (I don't know all the details of your gun laws, but I'm sure I'd prefer them to what the US has.)

quote:

And what is unjust about testing for alcohol/drug testing, when the evidence is of the substantial drop in the numbers of road deaths after the introduction of random testing?

There's nothing unjust about testing - there is an injustice if the thing being tested isn't actually the thing causing the impairment.

With blood/breath tests for alcohol, the thing being tested (alcohol content) is the thing that causes the driving impairment, and you can say with confidence that a typical person with BAC over 0.08 is going to have increased his accident risk by a factor of 4-ish (that's from memory, but I think it's about the right size). That's a bigger increase than the normal day-to-day variation in risk for a responsible driver, and so a defensible place to draw a line and say "you've made yourself too unsafe". You can defend 0.05 as well (which I think is more like a factor of 2) but I don't think you can make a defensible case for a lower limit than that.

I am being told in this thread that the tests used for drugs (as opposed to alcohol) tend to indicate failure for some time after the drugs have stopped causing an impairment (because they're testing for metabolytes with longer biological half-lives rather than the drug itself). That's the bit that's unjust - a test that purports to indicate an unfitness to drive when the person regained their fitness to drive some hours earlier.

(Assuming that Australia is anything like most other places, I'd assume that the vast majority of the accident reduction is caused by the alcohol test. We know that people think they can drive better than they can, and drunk people think they are less impaired than they actually are. It makes perfect sense that someone would think "I'm OK to drive after three or four pints - I'll just take things easy" and also "I am over the legal limit, and there's a chance I might be randomly stopped, so although I think I can drive OK, I won't risk the penalties.")

(We have random DUI checkpoints here from time to time. I've never actually seen one, but I'm not usually driving around town on a Friday night. They're infrequent enough that I suspect they're used more as an awareness thing than a deterrent. Most DUI stops here are patrol cars stopping speeders or erratic drivers. I have a friend who drives a beat up old truck, and used to work an evening shift. He'd get off work at half past midnight, and drive home past several bars. He told me he had a cop follow him for a mile or so every evening for a week, assuming that he'd been drinking at the bar.)

Posted by simontoad (# 18096) on :

Many drugs are illegal here, including the old mary jane.

As I understand it from a post above, the impairment lasts longer than the high. You can be back in your tree, so to speak, but still dangerous on the roads.

I suppose this begs the question, but driving a car is not a right, legal or human. It's been determined in Victoria that if you have a certain level of certain substances in your body, it's unsafe for you to drive. You have no right to drive in those circumstances. This is a political judgement as much as a scientific or policing judgement. Further, as the batsman about to make a century said to the sledging keeper, "Scoreboard". This stuff works.

How many more people are killed or injured in traffic accidents than in terrorist attacks? I lick my finger, stick it in the air and say squillions. The rights of the community to safer roads outweigh the rights of drug users and drinkers to drive on them, even if they are not stonkered when they exceed the proscribed level.

And if we are serious about road safety, we will test people when they have a smash and randomly, so that people will plan not to drive when they have the relevant level of substance in their blood. That was exactly my behavior as a young man. I didn't drink when I drove (mostly) and I was afraid of getting caught. I drove when I got stoned because the rozzers couldn't test for it.

Incidentally, it's not just being ripped that's unlawful here, it's anything that distracts you while you are driving. If you use your phone, eat a hamburger, drink a coke, change a CD, adjust your GPS, etc. etc. you can get a ticket at the discretion of the Cop who sees you. If you are doing those things and have a serious accident, you can go to jail and people have.

Road safety is everyone's right and expectation. Community rights trump anybody's limited and conditional licence to drive.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
I suppose this begs the question, but driving a car is not a right, legal or human.

Sure. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to be fair about who loses that privilege.

quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
It's been determined in Victoria that if you have a certain level of certain substances in your body, it's unsafe for you to drive. You have no right to drive in those circumstances. This is a political judgement as much as a scientific or policing judgement.

Shouldn't we be able to ask questions about how the political judgement diverges from the science and policing? It seems to me one could justify anything by saying "it's a political judgement" otherwise.

quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
Further, as the batsman about to make a century said to the sledging keeper, "Scoreboard". This stuff works.... The rights of the community to safer roads outweigh the rights of drug users and drinkers to drive on them, even if they are not stonkered when they exceed the proscribed level.

So how about life-time driving bans for anyone ever involved in a drugs offence? That would very likely improve road safety. Would you support it?

The follow up would be simply raising the minimum age for driving. That would likewise improve safety.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

Leorning Cniht, a few late night comments:

A person may appear to be driving without impairment in normal conditions. What about reaction under emergency?

To own a firearm requires a licence and very strict requirements for safeguarding it.

At about the same time as the random etc breath tests were introduced, there was a range of other measures taken to reduce or minimise injuries or fatalities in road accidents, including the compulsory use of seatbelts*. Obviously that would have had quite some effect, but not on the death of or injury to pedestrians. Those numbers also dropped so it's a fair inference that the test had some beneficial results.

* In the US, all sorts or steps were taken to force manufacturers and importers to install seat belts, provide warning bells if they were not connected, devices on dashboards to caste bad spells on the sex lives of noncompliant drivers etc - but no offence of failure to wear one. A very different culture.

[ 28. August 2017, 13:09: Message edited by: Gee D ]

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:

A person may appear to be driving without impairment in normal conditions. What about reaction under emergency?

In the case of alcohol, the accident risks are well-measured. That would include reaction under emergency conditions. And yes, I agree - someone who is just over the limit is likely to be able to drive perfectly safely in low traffic if nothing unusual happens; it's when something happens that he's much more likely to have an accident. I'm sure this contributes to the fact that drunk people think they're more able to drive than they really are.

Once again, it's a question of whether people's driving is actually impaired.

It is completely reasonable to prevent people from driving when they have some kind of chemical impairment, and it's reasonable to institute whatever kind of testing scheme you can get people to agree to.

It is not reasonable to punish someone because the drug test says that they would have been impaired yesterday. They weren't driving yesterday.

[ 28. August 2017, 13:39: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

It is not reasonable to punish someone because the drug test says that they would have been impaired yesterday. They weren't driving yesterday.

... but it IS reasonable to say to the general public, "These are the limits of our current technology. Plan accordingly so you don't end up whining for special treatment because our test is not sensitive enough to detect that you are in the x-hour safe-to-drive-but-our-test-says-not window."

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
... but it IS reasonable to say to the general public, "These are the limits of our current technology. Plan accordingly so you don't end up whining for special treatment because our test is not sensitive enough to detect that you are in the x-hour safe-to-drive-but-our-test-says-not window."

Is it? Perhaps whether or not it is reasonable depends on how different the timescales of the test and the impairment are. If it's an hour or two, I might shrug and agree with you.

But let's use alcohol as an example, because most of us are more familiar with it. We all agree that someone who goes to the bar and has three or four pints shouldn't drive home. We also all, I think, agree that someone who had three or four pints in the bar yesterday evening is perfectly fine to drive to work the next morning.

If the standard test for alcohol consumption produced a positive result the morning after you had three pints, it would never have been used. We'd be relying on making people walk in straight lines touching their fingers to their noses or whatever.

Nobody* would tell someone to plan accordingly and not drink the evening before they intend to drive a car, and nobody* would accuse someone who pointed out that perhaps there was something just a little unjust with this idea of "whining".

In an environment where drug use is legal (and plenty of drug impairments are caused by completely legal prescription medication, not just recreational substances), a test that produces a false positive the morning after shouldn't be acceptable. It shouldn't be used - it's worse than the field sobriety nose-pointing assessment.

If we're talking about illegal drugs - well, maybe you can shrug and say that people shouldn't take them anyway, so you don't really care whether you jail some extra druggies.

I don't find much justice in that idea, but I suppose YMMV.

*very few people.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Here's where we're thinking differently. I would throw in the 'walk a straight line' or 'touch your nose' or whatever as an integral part of the test. To do otherwise is to rely on half of the resources available for evaluating someone.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

Actually that's a big part of how I'm thinking. (If I read you right that is). If you hit a pedestrian at a zebra crossing (or less dramatically, look a bit wobbly and can't touch your nose), and then test positive for a substance that *might* not be intoxicating at that point in time but sometimes is, then I think you're for it and deserve to be booked. A not-so-good test is still worth doing to find out that this erratically driving individual is also a fairly-recent-drug-using individual.

If on the other hand you are stopped at random and test positive then I want the test to be really good. I don't want someone to be stopped at random and prosecuted for a non-intoxicating level of something.

For my money, alcohol breath testing meets the standards of a really good test, I'm not sure some of the other drugs tests do. I haven't looked through each in turn, likely some are quite good tests and could theoretically be used at random. But it may not be cost-effective given that you are doing relatively complicated tests that don't detect everything. (Although the deterrence effect alone might be worth something).

[ 28. August 2017, 16:03: Message edited by: mdijon ]

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
But let's use alcohol as an example, because most of us are more familiar with it. We all agree that someone who goes to the bar and has three or four pints shouldn't drive home. We also all, I think, agree that someone who had three or four pints in the bar yesterday evening is perfectly fine to drive to work the next morning.

I'm not sure we would all agree about the second part (it'll depend on what you mean by "evening" to an extent). Four pints is about 8 units, and it takes about an hour for a unit to clear the blood stream. Therefore, if you had 8 pints up until midnight, that would have only just cleared at 8am. If, for whatever reason, your body is a bit slower at clearing alcohol from the body you could still easily be over the 50mg/100ml blood alcohol limit. Which is why at certain times of the year (running up to Christmas, for example) the police catch a lot of people driving over the limit after drinking the previous night.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Here's where we're thinking differently. I would throw in the 'walk a straight line' or 'touch your nose' or whatever as an integral part of the test. To do otherwise is to rely on half of the resources available for evaluating someone.

If we're talking about people being convicted on a "false positive" drug test, then I think we have to assume that they passed (or would pass) whatever kind of field sobriety nose-touching test is on offer.

Following mdijon, if you hit a pedestrian, or wobble all over the road, that looks like prima facie evidence that you are driving without due care and attention. It is possible that you are unfit through drink, or drugs, or tiredness, or maybe you're just an idiot changing the cd in your music system or changing your pants.

If your driving shows evidence of impairment, and you also fail a test that indicates that you have used a particular intoxicating substance some time in the last two days, that's probably presumptive evidence that that intoxicant is the cause of your impairment.

But if you don't show signs of impairment, but fail that test, it doesn't mean much at all.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I'm not sure we would all agree about the second part (it'll depend on what you mean by "evening" to an extent).

Yes, that's a fair point (and also on how early you set of for work the next morning). I was rather assuming that you were consuming your beer steadily over the course of the evening, rather than downing four pints at midnight, and under that assumption, the chances of a man who drinks four pints between let's say 8 and 11pm being unfit to drive at 7 or 8 the next morning are small.

But it's always worth pointing out that you can be unfit the next morning from a big session the night before - alcohol is broken down in a zero order reaction, where the rate of breakdown is independent of the concentration. It's a linear relationship - you lose a unit per hour. So if you have an extra pint (2-3 units, depending on what kind of beer you drink) it'll take an extra 2-3 hours for you to sober up.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

For reference, for people who don't carry these numbers around in their heads, one unit of alcohol is worth about 0.015 BAC in a typical man.

So our man who drinks four pints (8-12 units, depending on what beer he likes) would have a BAC of between 0.12 and .18 if he drank it all at once.

He starts drinking at 8, and leaves the pub/bar at 11. At that point, he's spent 3 hours** metabolizing alcohol, and is down to a BAC of between 0.075 and 0.135. He shouldn't drive home, although if he drinks weak beer and is lucky, he might just squeak under the legal 0.08 limit in England*. The limit's 0.05 in Scotland, though.

Our average man will cross the Scottish legal limit at some point between midnight and five the next morning, depending on the strength of his beer, and will have eliminated all the alcohol in his body by between four and eight am.

For Mr. Average to be over the Scottish 0.05 limit at 8am the next morning on his drive to work, with all the other assumptions intact, he'd have had to consume a bit more than 15 units the previous evening, which might be 5 pints or so, if he likes strongish beer. Or a bottle and a half of wine. That's quite a lot to drink, but not an inconceivable amount at a party where people are getting drunk - hence Alan's morning-after-the-Christmas-party point. And if he's at a party that goes on late, it's even easier to drink that much without feeling excessively drunk at any point.

(You can add on to that the fact that if he's come home drunk from a party that went on late, then he will also sleep poorly. So not only might he still be unfit through drink the next morning, but he might also be unfit through tiredness.)

*These are averages. People vary. The variations are mostly person-to-person though - the response of a particular person will be pretty similar each time. You can speed up the rate of alcohol metabolism a little bit if you eat a meal first, but the effect isn't very big. You can make it worse by getting liver disease, or by taking certain medications. That's really it - drinking water or strong coffee afterwards or the next morning makes no difference to the speed at which you eliminate the alcohol.

**This is a bit wrong - you should add maybe half an hour to all the times to account for the absorption time of the first drink: you can't start eliminating the alcohol until it's in your system.

***It should be obvious, but given the nature of the subject, I'll make this explicit. This is not advice. These are averages, and you are probably not average.

[ 28. August 2017, 21:01: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

The key words in there are "typical" and "average". And, no one is average.

I guess there are two types of people.

Those who assume they're slower at metabolising alcohol or that they're more affected by alcohol. Like me. If I'm going to be driving in the next 3-4 hours I will not drink any alcohol. If I'm driving the next morning (so, get home, 8h sleep plus 1-2h after waking up before getting in the car) I'll have no more than a couple of pints.

Those who assume they can handle alcohol better, metabolise it quicker. And, then have too much.

I know what I'd prefer people to be when it comes to the safety of others.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

There's also questions of whether you actually ARE a man--women tend to mass less--and what else you had to eat or drink (and when), whether you have any metabolic variants that affect how fast you clear alcohol. I'd be willing to bet I've got a variant that clears more slowly. We've got American Indian ancestry, and my folks just weren't drinking for all those millennia.

Chances are you're not going to BE tested chemically unless you fail the obvious coordination etc. tests, or show signs of impairment. Not many populations have to put up with random chemical tests, and those that do are normally aware of that fact, as well as the test order-ers knowing that there are legitimate uses for certain otherwise-questionable drugs. By which I mean that I wouldn't expect an authority to just rain down blanket condemnation on anybody who tested positive for hydrocodone in the past week (or whatever), because that could be due to legal and legitimate use.

Of course, if the orderers of the tests are jerks, all bets are off.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Not many populations have to put up with random chemical tests

Though, several governments seem intent on forcing random tests on some of their populations - specifically those need welfare support. At the same time as the majority of the people who elected them would be up in arms if they were forced to undergo random tests while driving.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:

A person may appear to be driving without impairment in normal conditions. What about reaction under emergency?
Once again, it's a question of whether people's driving is actually impaired.

It is completely reasonable to prevent people from driving when they have some kind of chemical impairment, and it's reasonable to institute whatever kind of testing scheme you can get people to agree to.

All too often, the sign of impairment is the body of a pedestrian on the road.

As to the recovery rate: breath testing on the morning after a night of rejoicing - New Year's Day, grand final the night before etc - will pick up a very large number of people still well over the limit, many saying they thought they'd "slept it off".

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

Those who assume they can handle alcohol better, metabolise it quicker. And, then have too much.

Particularly when they see "handling" alcohol as a sign of manliness or something.

I'll stand by my claim that Mr. Four-Pints is really unlikely to be over the limit the next morning (although I'll admit that I was thinking of the US/English 0.08 limit when I wrote that; the average man will take two extra hours to get from the US/English limit down to the Scottish one.)

Personally the amount I'm prepared to drink depends on the kind of driving I'm going to do. I'll have a pint or two with lunch and drive home on rare occasions - I'm under the legal limit, and although I accept that my risk of having an accident is higher than if I hadn't had a drink, it's a short drive on familiar roads without heavy traffic, and without significant hazards (no crowded pedestrian areas etc.), so my accident risk is still small in absolute terms.

If I'm driving into the city (unfamiliar roads, complicated traffic patterns, general chaos, lots of random pedestrians, need to navigate to unfamiliar destination) I want to be both completely sober and well-rested. (Various studies suggest that being at the legal BAC limit and having only had 5 hours sleep the previous night are similar in terms of increased accident risk.)

Lamb Chopped: yes, women mass less, and a bunch of other things. That means you get more BAC per unit of alcohol. OTOH, women tend to metabolize alcohol faster than men, so if a man and a woman drink to the same level of drunkenness (which means the woman will have had fewer drinks), the woman will on average sober up a bit faster. Possibly, this is because proportionately more of the average woman's body mass is liver.

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Not many populations have to put up with random chemical tests, and those that do are normally aware of that fact, as well as the test order-ers knowing that there are legitimate uses for certain otherwise-questionable drugs. By which I mean that I wouldn't expect an authority to just rain down blanket condemnation on anybody who tested positive for hydrocodone in the past week (or whatever), because that could be due to legal and legitimate use.

Of course, if the orderers of the tests are jerks, all bets are off.

The discussion began with GeeD talking about the random drug and alcohol tests in Australia, so that was the context.

Whether or not there are "legitimate" uses for the drug is irrelevant when it comes to driving impairment. If you're taking opiate painkillers prescribed quite legitimately by your doctor because you have significant pain, because of reasons, you're not safe to drive even though you have a legitimate reason for having the drugs. If you took illegal drugs yesterday, you are probably driving at your normal standard today, even though you don't have a "legitimate" reason for the drugs.

My claim in this thread is that a random drug test for drivers is only acceptable if it measures something that tells you about the current or recent past impairment of the driver. A random test to discover that some driver has used marijuana at some point in the last 72 hours is exactly a test ordered by jerks, and is almost completely unrelated to driving safety.

(I don't actually know how the drug tests used on GeeD's random motorists perform, so all this argument has been based on "if they work this way, that's OK. If they work that way, that's horrible.")

We understand how alcohol tests work, and we understand that the thing that they measure is exactly the thing that causes the increased accident risk. If drug tests work in the same way, then hat's great - I'm entirely happy for them to be used on drivers at random checkpoints or whatever.

But the speculation on this thread was that they did not work in the same way, and that they would show a positive result long after the impairment has vanished. That's a problem.

[ 28. August 2017, 22:19: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]

Posted by simontoad (# 18096) on :

tldr from my last post, but the point I wish to emphasise is that having random tests changes people's behavior. They plan not to drive if they know there's a chance of a random test. I did that with booze as a young man, and I reckon young people now do it with both booze and drugs. Obviously, I didn't give a rats arse for other road users when I was young, I just wanted my fun as Father Stack says in Father Ted. But I needed my drivers license, so I took steps to ensure that when I tried Polish Vodka with a mate at a party, I could pass out on the floor next to him without getting booted out the door at 3am.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

Random tests of drivers is what I thought we were talking about at one point in this thread. As LC says I don't think many populations put up with random testing. Apart from NSW drivers, athletes and sportmen and women are the other group I can think of.

As a general principle if you want to test people randomly you have to have a very good test to avoid lots of false positives. Alcohol breath testing is a very good test and I'm happy with it being applied randomly, and I'm sure it does change behaviour.

Drug testing is often less good, and for that reason I would be against it being applied randomly. I'm sure there would be an effect of changing behaviour, but I'm not sure I like the idea of introducing a law that might not be very logical on the basis that it will achieve some pragmatic aim.

As I said above, banning once-ever-drug-offenders from driving for life would be effective as a road safety measure, but I don't think it would be a fair or proportionate response.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Random tests of drivers is what I thought we were talking about at one point in this thread. As LC says I don't think many populations put up with random testing. Apart from NSW drivers, athletes and sportmen and women are the other group I can think of.

Oz generally AFAIK, not just NSW. Very little opposition to start with, and I'd be surprised if there were any at all now. The substantial drop in road deaths was enough to satisfy any qualms that had remained.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

Out of interest I did a google on "australia law random drug test motorist" and the links that appear show me that all is not as rosy as you make out, GeeD.

The Australian Lawyers Alliance doesn't agree, tests seem to be scaling back recently and there seems to be general confusion about the application and in fact someone did get off based on a prolonged positive result for cannabis.

So I also looked up the death rates on the roads in Australia.

Alcohol breath testing came in around the 70s, so we can't see the effect of that. Quite plausibly is was associated with a reduction in deaths though, I accept that. If I understand right from the other sources, the drugs testing has been introduced more recently. I don't see abruptly plummeting death rates at any point in the statistics, just a general decline.

GeeD, I don't think your representation of the situation does justice to what look like more diverse views on Australia on the matter, and the statistical support doesn't quite add up.

[ 29. August 2017, 07:42: Message edited by: mdijon ]

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

I had never heard of that organisation, and a check of the site shows a board I've never heard of either. I did a quick survey of a half dozen of us on the floor, and none of the others had heard of it either. I wouldn't be placing much weight on it until I knew a lot more about it.

There is no proof of a drop in road fatalities due to random testing. At about the same time it came in, there were other road safety initiatives including compulsory seat belt wearing for front seat occupants. That's why I've been very careful to talk of a correlation, not proof. Nor am I talking of the strictly technical testing matters that you and Learning Cniht have drawn attention to.

Carrall's case was not on the testing either but on lack of intent. I don't think that takes away anything from what I've said.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
There is no proof of a drop in road fatalities due to random testing. At about the same time it came in, there were other road safety initiatives including compulsory seat belt wearing for front seat occupants.

This seems mixed up. Random breath testing came in in the 70s. Seat belt wearing came in during the 70s and 80s. Random drugs testing has become increasingly adopted after 2010. From one of those links;

quote:
Of the 36,000 drug tests police have administered to NSW drivers in 2015, Insp Blair said almost 12 percent returned positive readings

That sounds vastly excessive to me. But in any case, it is hard to argue it has had much of a deterrent effect before 2015, and it doesn't look to me like there has been any drop in road traffic accidents even associated with the drug testing.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

How does that affect the comments I've been making about random testing for alcohol?

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

I agreed with those comments. It was on drugs that I didn't agree.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

I agree with the principle of random testing for drugs and alcohol. I had understood that you and Learning Cniht disagreed with the principle for each, and in relation to testing for drugs to the methodology as well. If you agree with the principle as to alcohol, how can you object in principle to the testing for drugs?

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

It's not the principle of drugs testing that I have a problem with, it's the situation in practice which is the result of drug metabolism leading to a different practical constrain on what can be tested for. If we had a great test that reliably identified intoxicating levels of active drug then I'd be much happier with random testing of motorists.

I'm surprised you hadn't picked up on my position. I thought it was pretty clear in these posts that I was distinguishing between alcohol and drugs.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:
Of the 36,000 drug tests police have administered to NSW drivers in 2015, Insp Blair said almost 12 percent returned positive readings
That sounds vastly excessive to me.

It sounds excessive to me too, for random and reliable drug tests. An excess of positive readings could result from a large proportion of false-positive results (I've heard of people failing tests because they like poppy-seeded bread products, and poppy-seeds contain trace quantities of opiates). And, of course, if a large proportion of those 36,000 tests were conducted where there was already evidence of intoxication (eg: for erratic behaviour) then that would also result in a rate of positive results in excess of the rate of drug use in the population.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
I agree with the principle of random testing for drugs and alcohol. I had understood that you and Learning Cniht disagreed with the principle for each, and in relation to testing for drugs to the methodology as well. If you agree with the principle as to alcohol, how can you object in principle to the testing for drugs?

I don't, in general, oppose the principle of random testing. It is not the principle that I am opposing - you seem to have misunderstood what I have been saying.

If you have a test which reliably indicates that someone is unfit to drive through some substance or other, and does not produce false positives when that person is fit to drive again, then great. We know that blood and breath tests for alcohol meet this standard.

Both mdijon and I have been objecting to the idea of using tests that do not have that property in a random fashion. So if the test you use indicates that the person used marijuana at some point in the last 3 days, it's worthless, and using it as a random test for drivers is unjust.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

As I have said, I'm not in a position to debate the accuracy or otherwise of either the drug or alcohol tests; there being testing, I assume a view contrary to yours.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
As I have said, I'm not in a position to debate the accuracy or otherwise of either the drug or alcohol tests; there being testing, I assume a view contrary to yours.

I'm not assuming a view. I'm saying that if a particular drug test behaves like he alcohol tests, it's fine, but if it behaves like the drug tests that indicate that someone has used drugs in the last few days (or even longer) then it's very much not fine.

Earlier in this thread, you made this statement, which is what I was objecting to:

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Cannabis is a good example where urine tests stay positive for many days, long after any drug effect has worn off. Cocaine also has an effect for an hour or so but remains in the urine for a day or two.
According to newspaper reports, several defendants have run that sort of defence, with a complete lack of success. As I said, the offence is driving with it, regardless of any drug effect, and simontoad gives some history. I can't say when the drug tests were introduced in NSW. Random blood alcohol tests are now about 45 years old.

The whole theory is that it makes a prosecution so much simpler.

You're not assuming that the tests are sensible - you're saying that you don't care whether the tests are sensible because the law says that if you fail the test you're guilty, and you care about the convenience of being able to prosecute someone who might have used drugs in recent days rather than the injustice of prosecuting someone who has used drugs, and then carefully waited until he was no longer impaired before driving.

There are two arguments associated with random testing. There's a philosophical argument that applies to any test whatsoever - perhaps someone wants to argue on some kind of libertarian grounds that random testing should be forbidden.

But the second argument is to do with the efficacy of the test. Once we have agreed in principle that random testing is OK, then we need to look at how the result of the proposed test correlates with driving impairment.

Once you accept the principle of random testing, whether particular testing is just or not depends entirely on the strength of this correlation.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:

Earlier in this thread, you made this statement, which is what I was objecting to:

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Cannabis is a good example where urine tests stay positive for many days, long after any drug effect has worn off. Cocaine also has an effect for an hour or so but remains in the urine for a day or two.
According to newspaper reports, several defendants have run that sort of defence, with a complete lack of success. As I said, the offence is driving with it, regardless of any drug effect, and simontoad gives some history. I can't say when the drug tests were introduced in NSW. Random blood alcohol tests are now about 45 years old.

The whole theory is that it makes a prosecution so much simpler.
You're not assuming that the tests are sensible - you're saying that you don't care whether the tests are sensible because the law says that if you fail the test you're guilty, and you care about the convenience of being able to prosecute someone who might have used drugs in recent days rather than the injustice of prosecuting someone who has used drugs, and then carefully waited until he was no longer impaired before driving.

You know that that's not what I said, and that you're engaging in the cheap debating trick of attributing a comment to the opponent, one which you're capable of demolishing, rather than deal with what's actually being said.

[ 30. August 2017, 03:43: Message edited by: Gee D ]

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
As I have said, I'm not in a position to debate the accuracy or otherwise of either the drug or alcohol tests; there being testing, I assume a view contrary to yours.

The accuracy of drug testing is central to my argument. And it seems to me central to the justice of a random drug testing policy.

It's difficult to make progress without the possibility of debating it.

Perhaps you could comment on the idea that, arguendo, were it the case that biologically inactive metabolites were positive for prolonged periods of time, then the approach of random testing is undermined?

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
It sounds excessive to me too, for random and reliable drug tests. An excess of positive readings could result from a large proportion of false-positive results (I've heard of people failing tests because they like poppy-seeded bread products, and poppy-seeds contain trace quantities of opiates).

The implication in the article is that these were part of the random testing roll-out. If the positives come from anyone who has smoked cannabis in the last 2 weeks, or anyone using a prescription pain-killer including an opiate, then I could imagine that contributing considerably to the 12%.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
As I have said, I'm not in a position to debate the accuracy or otherwise of either the drug or alcohol tests; there being testing, I assume a view contrary to yours.
The accuracy of drug testing is central to my argument. And it seems to me central to the justice of a random drug testing policy.

It's difficult to make progress without the possibility of debating it.

Perhaps you could comment on the idea that, arguendo, were it the case that biologically inactive metabolites were positive for prolonged periods of time, then the approach of random testing is undermined?

To start with I'd need an English translation of what you mean by your last paragraph.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

Cannabis is inhaled. When inhaled there are two groups of substances, let's say A and B, that are absorbed into the bloodstream. Let's say substances in group B cause you to be intoxicated.

Substance B leaves the bloodstream over 2/3 hrs. It does so, in part, by being converted to substance C.

Substances A and C take a few days to leave the bloodstream, and traces of substance C can be detected weeks down the line.

Substances A and C have no intoxicating effect, but they do show up in the drugs screen.

My argument is that, under these circumstances, it would be unfair to conduct random tests that cannot distinguish between A, B and C as a way of randomly screening drivers in the name of road safety.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

If that were the case, then I agree with you.

Posted by simontoad (# 18096) on :

If you're right, you'd make a killing getting people off drug driving charges. Get qualified and hang out your shingle.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

If the law is written in terms of measurement of secondary indicators of drug use - metabolites in saliva, for example - then if the test shows you have exceeded that measure there doesn't seem to be much of a way to get out of it, beyond challenging the law itself (and, how many people would want the hassle to taking their case to the highest courts in the land over an unfair test that gives you an unfair driving offence? Especially if so doing means you are publicly declaring a history of using illegal drugs?).

The law may be unfair and stupid, but if that's what the law is then it's not an easy thing to challenge an individual conviction.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

And indeed, the successful case referred to above did not deal with the question of the test, but on whether the defendant had the intent to drive, the magistrate finding that intent was necessary.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
You know that that's not what I said, and that you're engaging in the cheap debating trick of attributing a comment to the opponent, one which you're capable of demolishing, rather than deal with what's actually being said.

I thought it was a pretty fair paraphrase. In response to mdijon's comment about urine tests for cannabis and cocaine showing positive long after the effects of the drug have worn off, you said that the offence was failing the test rather than showing effects of intoxication (fine - that's a statement of fact concerning Australian law), and commented approvingly that doing it that way made prosecution much simpler.

Making that comment in direct response to a statement about tests showing positive results long after the intoxicating effects have passed seems to imply exactly that you "care about the convenience of being able to prosecute someone who might have used drugs in recent days rather than the injustice of prosecuting someone who has used drugs, and then carefully waited until he was no longer impaired before driving."

Although I note that you have now agreed with mdijon, so perhaps you didn't understand earlier that the substance that the drug test was testing for was not the intoxicating substance.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

It was not a fair paraphrase, nor even a paraphrase. There was neither approval or disapproval in what I said. I simply set out the argument made at the time that the offence of driving with more than the prescribed content of alcohol in your blood was introduced. What you inferred is a matter for you, but there was no implication by me.

In your last paragraph you say that I have agreed with mdijon. Again, that's not accurate. What I said was If that were the case, then I agree with you. I know that is his case and yours and you may well be right; however, I have the impression that it is not a universal opinion given the nature of the offence here.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

I've previously linked to a rather dense discussion of cannabis drug metabolism, which made the points about testing but wasn't very accessible.

Wikipedia is pretty good on it and shows some of the complexities.

It would be possible to test for cannabis in saliva in a way that is more closely related to active components (i.e. substance B in my previous write-up). But urine testing tends to pick up substance C, and therefore doesn't lead to a very fair implementation of the law.

As GeeD says, the guy who got off the urine test charge did so on intention rather than because of the prolonged positive result, long after active components of cannabis were gone.

So that is my problem with the current application of this law.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

There is a reason why a legal blood alcohol limit is set: it's based on science as to what level of alcohol will cause impairment (whether visible or not).

There are serious questions about whether any such science underlies drug testing. That is the fundamental issue with it, whether the science has actually been done to establish that what the test picks up reflects a driving impairment.

That's the problem here GeeD, you don't appear to be acknowledging that having some alcohol in your system while driving is actually legal, on the grounds that it's possible to have some alcohol in your system without being impaired.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

Meanwhile, to return to the question of drug testing welfare recipients (on which I have somewhat mixed feelings): the latest article I've seen here in Australia was about a bunch of medical professionals saying they believe the planned approach will increase crime.

The reasoning being that they don't believe quarantining people's welfare payments will stop them from using drugs if they have a drug problem. It will just deprive them of their usual source of money for buying drugs. And so they will find the money other ways, primarily crime.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

Quite clearly many can have some alcohol in their system and drive legally - that's why the offence is having more than the prescribed content. It's only those on L and P plates that can have none. Indeed, I've said as much.

Totally agree with you about testing welfare recipients - it's a totally regressive approach by the Govt.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
There is a reason why a legal blood alcohol limit is set: it's based on science as to what level of alcohol will cause impairment (whether visible or not).

There are serious questions about whether any such science underlies drug testing. That is the fundamental issue with it, whether the science has actually been done to establish that what the test picks up reflects a driving impairment.

That's the problem here GeeD, you don't appear to be acknowledging that having some alcohol in your system while driving is actually legal, on the grounds that it's possible to have some alcohol in your system without being impaired.

I always assumed that any amount of alcohol impairs ability to drive (and, do other things), with degree of impairment following a no-threshold model (not necessarily a linear one) similar to what I'm used to in radiation exposure. The legal limit is then set according to a judgement of the point at which that impairment results in a significant risk to the driver and others. What's lacking is the basis for setting that limit, which is why it varies with jurisdiction - in most of Europe between 0 and 50mg/100ml (only the UK, excluding Scotland, and Malta have the high limit of 80mg/100ml). Wikipedia list of limits by nation.

There would be ethical issues in obtaining the data needed to assess corresponding limits for other drugs. You would need people to take illegal drugs and undergo testing of driving ability at different levels of active concentrations in blood.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

I'd have thought you could devise a test that did not involve actual driving. The ethical problems would include having people ingest illegal drugs at all, and in particular that some are addictive.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

It was the issues of having people take drugs that I was referring to. Clearly the tests of driving ability could be done on a simulator - or by other tests of attention, coordination and other factors relevant to safe driving.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

Such tests have been done with cannabis as well as alcohol. (See references above for cannabis).

There isn't a solid basis for a cut-off level of alcohol, any at all seems to have an effect. Interestingly there are also effects on judgement that may be important at low levels of alcohol.

I read one study where the first thing noticed was that the average driving speed in the simulated test went up. This happened before any discernible loss of coordination.

Having a minimum level may also be useful in reducing false positive tests (which tend to be low-level) aside from any view about how much alcohol is damaging to concentration.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

Learner and P-plate drivers are not permitted any alcohol in their blood.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Learner and P-plate drivers are not permitted any alcohol in their blood.

Which will be a local regulation (to start in the UK, for example, P-plates have no legal basis). As I pointed out earlier, there are quite a few countries where the blood-alcohol limit is zero, for all drivers. Many others where the limit for commercial drivers is zero, or significantly lower than for non-commercial drivers. A few countries even have relatively high blood alcohol limits, as high as 80mg/100ml in a few cases, without any categorisation between different drivers.

As noted, there is no safe level of alcohol in blood, even a very small amount will impair driving ability. The legal limits are a balance between different factors - mainly the increased risks with increasing blood-alcohol levels compared to other risk factors (there will be a point where the increase in accidents due to alcohol will disappear into the noise from accidents with other causes), the cost and enforceability of testing (all tests will have a minimum detection limit, close to which you will get an increasing number of false positives), social acceptability etc

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
There is a reason why a legal blood alcohol limit is set: it's based on science as to what level of alcohol will cause impairment (whether visible or not).

The levels are set with a combination of acceptable risk¹ and public tolerance.² Impairment begins much lower than many countries legislate. In reality, the level should be 0.0mg/ml or 0.0%.

¹Based on the average person with no other factors considered
²What percentage of mangling and death will the public tolerate for their drinky drink.
Public tolerance is a factor in most motoring laws.

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