Why saliva testing for road side impairment tests will be madness

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No one wants people who are impaired to drive a car. That’s fine, that’s a public safety issue, no one would be crazy enough to want people who are dangerous on the roads being on the roads.

But here’s the problem.

Cannabis stays in someones system for up to a month, sometimes 6 weeks. What a Saliva Test will get are a bunch of false positives. A person will test for THC while no longer being under the impairment of THC.

Because cannabis is illegal, there can’t be an impairment level. Because cannabis is the most widely used illegal narcotic that is a lot of people who can be caught up via a flawed process.

We want safer roads. We don’t want unjust roads.

29 COMMENTS

  1. It’s angry people on the road that concern me, even people who drink too much coffee can be pushy drivers

  2. Business will collapse for the lack of staff and not being able to get to their jobs for the lack of a car licence to drive. I read somewhere where we are the biggest users of cannabis in the world. Too many people are toking and not enough to be dangerous and are still doing their jobs well. Alcohol is far worse, you never see people being smashed about on pavements by a person who has had a toke at half time at a show or outside a club in the early hours. Cannabis is a “downer” not an upper and it makes people mellow.

    This Government would cut its nose off in spite of itself with all the evidence at its fingertips that it should be legislated or at least de-criminalized. . It plays catch up with any legislation it passes whether it be good or bad – the latest education fiasco is an example of other nations having done it and its not working. This is in the reverse, other nations are enacting or have enacted cannabis to be lawful and it is working but this Government is blundering about full of its stupid ideology. Maybe its because their constituents are not stoners just snort the white stuff so they just don’t care enough.

    As an aside there are heaps of people driving on prescription medication that has a warning about driving – do you think they don’t get behind the wheel, commerce and business would be finished if that was also cranked up into legislation. So many people are on anti-depressants and who can blame them with this ghastly depressing Government and its lack of security jobs and homelessness.

    This Government are just plain bloody useless.

  3. Ironically, while in the United States and elsewhere marijuana is becoming legal, here they are making it even more difficult to enjoy

  4. I agree that current tests for THC are unfair and a indicator of use not impairment.

    Having had to pee a sample for a factory job, I found the experience to be degrading.

    Then for the company to be rid of me after 80 days, fully utilising the law to their benefit.

  5. Everything is madness, Martyn.

    Humans evolved over several million years to be long distance walkers capable of bursts of quite fast running. Without the strenuous activity human bodies have evolved for, they become pudgy and sick, and prone to all sorts of physical and mental disorders.

    The short-term aberration of personalised mass transport via motorised boxes that we have witnessed over the past century or so is about to come to a fairly abrupt end, and won’t last more than another decade.

    http://crudeoilpeak.info/oil-reserves-and-resources-as-function-of-oil-price

    Apart from the ‘problem’ of declining reserves and declining Energy Return On Energy Invested there is the matter of Abrupt Climate Change; burning the oil (and coal) we still have access to will completely ruin the habitability of the Earth for humans and most other vertebrate species.

    https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/co2_800k.png

    If, as a society, we wanted to make roads safer we could immediately reduce speed limits by 10 or 20kph (to some extent killing many birds with one stone). But much-reduced speed limits would interfere with the short-term agendas oil companies and car manufacturers, and the generally consumeristic narratives of the insane society we live in.

    Therefore, the lies will continue [about energy and climate] and nothing will change for the better. Western industrialised societies will remain on track for the inevitable ‘crash and burn’ ending to everything.

  6. This is bullshit. It has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with control. I’d rather be on the road with stoned drivers than stupid, angry, suicidal ones any fucking day.

    • I agree and I have been around many stoners in my life and none of them have been aggressive at all. What is a major problem is people on prescription medication like tranquilisers or other meds which have a precaution to not drive or drink alcohol while using the pills. There must be heaps of them driving to work each day or going about their business on the open road. Somebody on this site said its about control and it sure is. Granny State on steroids and they criticised Helen Clark. Not only control but a sort of punishing just because they can.

      They are a hideous lot in power at present and I wonder how long its going to take for the electorate to wake up and realise how disgusting they are and do something about it. Also how about testing the MP’s before they sit in the house – no alcohol in the system for 12 hours prior to sitting , it is a work site of sorts though not much work gets done – how many would pass that?? Bloody hypocrites.

  7. The key FACT is that National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) found that cannabis DOES NOT actually impact driving, after controlling for drivers’ age, gender, race, and presence of alcohol:
    http://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/nti/pdf/812117-Drug_and_Alcohol_Crash_Risk.pdf
    So this whole fucking thing is bogus from the get go. Of course the cops in charge probably know all this already, but they do it anyway, because it’s all about demonisation and control, as opposed to actually increasing safety.

  8. Is there a legal Ministry approved test? No. Most convictions are proven by admission or/and voluntary blood test to detect THC. There is no legal medical threshold to prove a specific level of impairment that breach’s a law for weed.

  9. selwyn manning on nat-rad fully enthusiastic for this roadside testing for cannabis use (at some time in the previous 30 days)..

    ..and like ‘fully enthusuastic’…w.t.f. is up with that..?..mr manning..?

    ..that scientist/doctor chris wilkins(?) was also on there saying ‘pot is as bad as alcohol’..

    ..and that is just absolute shite…alcohol kills how any each yr..?..

    ..pot..ever..?

    ..for this clown to be an ‘expert’ and talking utter crap like this is a sick fucken joke..

    ..and mora fretted about ‘the obvious problems’ that will come with legalisation..

    what fucken ‘obvious problems’..?..(that’s all he had..no details of what these ‘problems’ might be..just prohibitionist-fretting..)

    ..my son was also listening at the time..and noted how mora was just pulling stats out of his arse..

    ..this is the standard of dialogue on this topic..

  10. and as someone else has noted – those driving around whacked out of their heads on the uppers/dowers/screamers that doctors prescribe..then they have their legal amount of booze…that’s a danger..

    ..this is just all prohibitionist kickback-bullshit…

  11. Martyn, you’re right at THC stays in the body for a month but you’re wrong in thinking that a test would result in a ‘false positive’ result.

    It would result in a ‘true positive’ result ….because the drug is indeed still in the system.

    One of the hidden dangers with dope smoking is that people who smoke say once a week can easily kid themselves that they’re not addicted to it when in fact they’ve not experienced withdrawal symptoms.

    • oh..!..clever you..!…

      putting the ant in pedantic..eh..?

      ..what ‘withdrawal symptoms’..?

      ..and smoking once a week is an ‘addiction’..eh..?

      ..i thought a rightwinger like you wd appreciate/argue the economic case/sense for lrt…legalisation/regulation/taxation..

      ..but yeah..nah..eh..?

  12. As I understand it, a person will have to wait at least ten minutes for \a test result.

    That means an awful lot of drivers waiting by the roadside, probably longer than ten minutes as the queue for testing mounts at ant given operation.

    So here’s the question; Will this entail the Police requiring drivers to wait at the side of the road, in effect detaining drivers whilst the test is carried out and the results awaited?

    If so, this will be detention without any formal arrest or charge.

    I wonder if Kiwi brains, made semi-comatose by too much Reality TV and commercial radio pap, will begin to realise that they have been informally detained without charge or arrest during this process?

    • Hi frank, as I understand things, the police can keep you for up to 15 mins.
      This is enshrined in law, introduced with the ‘random’ stopping of motorists.

  13. No coincidence, this is scare mongering to try and scare those who gave changed their minds in polls about cannabis policy recently.

  14. I could be wrong but I suspect the introduction of this test is a precursor to a potential law change on Marijuana. The National government are astute enough to know when the tide is turning on a given issue and my hunch is that we’ll see decriminalization as part of next years election if not before.

    • @ peter bradley..

      i think the tories will do some half-arsed attempt at med-pot before the next election – just to try to defuse what could cost them significant votes then..in an election that is promising to be close..(the imperatives for them to move on this are growing by the day..)

      and tho’ it would be sweet to see them toppled over this – of this being what nudges them to defeat..to key taking that long walk..i wd rather immediate relief for the cancer-sufferers etc now deprived of this proven salve..)

      ..and of course..if the tories do a partial-decrim/med-pot before the next election –

      – and if the greens are smart – they will seize that opportunity to argue for full legalisation (on economic-grounds) in the election campaign..

      ..as just being ‘commonsense’..

      ..but i am not looking to labour expecting anything..they aren’t leaders – they are just followers..on so so much..

      ..craft-beer fan andrew little is a total prohibitonist..

      ..more fool him..!

      • by that comment on labour i mean that the greens will have that legalisation field to themselves..

        what a delicious irony it will be if the issue that first got them into parliament is also the issue that first sees them tasting real power..

        ..and an issue they have ignored since that initial victory..

        ..(and if i could make a suggestion to the greens it would be to replace kevin hague as the spokesperson on this issue..

        .his heart clearly isn’t in it..eh..?..he isn’t even pretending to try..

        ..and at heart is a prohibitionist..

        ..give it to someone who believes i the issue and will argue it forcefully…(you do have someone that fits that profile..?..don’t you..?..)

        ..the long embarassed silences from hague on his responsibility is naught but a sick joke…

        ,,especially at a time when this issue is on fire..internationally..

    • I disagree, National is not known for being proactive much other than privatisation.

      I believe what’s going on here is that National is trying to scaremonger people about a whole lot of stoned drivers, in order to try to change their opinion beach against liberalisation. Similar to the “pro cannabis reform” tagging of Nikki Kaye’s office. Similar to “anti TPPA” tagging. It’s convenient how whenever the majority of the public stand for something different to the govt, all of a sudden there is tagging the MPs offices…

      An impairment test followed by blood testing is considered effective by the police…

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