The new drug driving roadside tests will punish Māori the most.
Cannabis is the most widely used illegal drug in New Zealand and we know from previous research that Māori get targeted for it and punished for having it far more than Pakeha.
The real trouble with the new drug driving road tests is that they will only test for the presence of cannabis in your system, they don’t test for impairment.
What do I mean by that?
I mean a person may have smoked some cannabis on Friday, but they will still test positive on the Tuesday.
They are not impaired to drive, but they test positive anyway.
All this will do is find a whole lot off New Zealanders guilty of having cannabis in their system, it won’t be proving they are too impaired to drive.
When you consider medicinal cannabis is now a legal drug that you can purchase from the Chemist Warehouse, that means a lot of Kiwis are about to get pinged, not because they are too stoned to drive, but because they have THC still in their system.
We know Māori get targeted for this crime more and we know they get punched more harshly.
Māori will be targeted for roadside drug tests and they will fail them, again, NOT because they are too impaired to drive, but because the cannabis is still registering in their system.
We want our roads to be safe, we demand they be safe, but road side drug testing is not the solution, it’s merely an excuse to catch people out rather than make roads safer.
The penalty for this illusion of safety will be paid most by Māori.
The way for Maori not to be effected by this is not smoke cannabis before driving.
Sure – 3-5 days before driving!?!
In Tasmania and Victoria a prescription for medical cannabis with be accepted as a reason for it being in your system but not an excuse if it causes impaired driving .Thisvis no different to normal prescription drugs. If the testing stops drugvues then it is a win for all road users. .
There seem to be enough incompetent drivers, even without the influence of other substances, so when are they going to take action against them? I guess it’s too much to hope that the substance users would decide that they can live life without being under the influence.
Martyn – That’s a bit rough on Maori claiming they, Maori, will be punished the hardest…
More pakeha smoking dope than Maori even P
Yes but P improves your driving.
Presence-based THC testing isn’t impairment testing, and that’s the core problem: cannabis can show up days after use, meaning people who aren’t impaired, including medicinal cannabis patients, will still fail roadside tests. Because Māori are already stopped, searched and charged more often for drug-related offences, this system inevitably hits them hardest, not because they’re driving stoned, but because the test punishes biology rather than behaviour. If the goal is safer roads, we need impairment-based tools, not a gotcha model that creates offenders instead of actually reducing harm. Because nothing says ‘road safety’ like getting busted for last weekend.
Yes of course, we are more likely to get pulled over (do they still call it a bias) and tested I know this from experience as the police will target us and the areas we live in. I call its racism, also THC can stay in the body for months, so a driver is not impaired in this case, so this is more bullshit and the COC using the stick we are becoming like a police state.
What if you have medications like cold flu tablets that have pseudoephedrine which is the precursor for Meth unless they’ve got test that excludes that ingredient? And could your vehicle be impounded if you test positive while you have a car full of people eg..kids, friends etc..?
Maori are not stupid. They won’t use illegal drugs and drive if there are bad consequences. Just like 99% of us.
I approve.
So in essence it’s a bunch of sanctimonious arseholes gathering revenue or just trying to impart their moralistic crap on people. I’d question if they really care about safety.
Pointing out it will disproportionately impact Māori is completely unhelpful. It just makes the ZB crowd think it’s a great idea.
This country is so fing stupid
Not really Wheel we need to speak up when there are injustices who cares about the ZB brigade I have listened to many of them, and they are bunch of twats and many don’t know what the fuck they are talking about nor can they relate to what I am talking about because they do not have to walk in my shoes.
Even worse, this not for impairment but for ingestion testing will be carried out using devices that return false positive results a statistically significant amount of the time.
Not really Wheel we need to speak up when there are injustices who cares about the ZB brigade I have listened to many of them, and they are bunch of twats and many don’t know what the fuck they are talking about nor can they relate to what I am talking about because they do not have to walk in my shoes.
Not really Wheel we need to speak up when there are injustices who cares about the ZB brigade I have listened to many of them, and they are bunch of twats and many don’t know what the fuck they are talking about nor can they relate to what I am talking about because they do not have to walk in my shoes.