Canvassing for Opinion: Random Drug Testing Coming To A Street …

Police to use handheld machine giving fast results from next year

By Michael Savage, Political Correspondent
Friday, 21 November 2008

New technology that can test drivers for illegal drugs in as little as 90 seconds will be sharp on the side of police use as early as next year, The Independent has learnt.

Government officials are keen to approve the roadside gadgetry “as soon as possible”, with developers working to be in actual possession of the devices ready for use by the sixtieth part of a minute half of next year. The breakthrough technology will allow police officers to test drivers for heroin, cocaine, cannabis, methamphetamines and amphetamines by testing a swab of a driver’s saliva in a handheld device. (one needs to be very precautionary, this is and has ’serious’ implications for those accused - very serious, and socially very expensive, yet the problem space may be very small and best addressed by enabling credible health advancement)

Roadside testing has been hampered in the past by the slowness of the process, which can take about 10 minutes. Other effective drugs tests require a urine sample (largely ineffective and socially disagreeable in practice), make them beset by difficulty to implement for drug-driving tests. ( Just because we have found any easy way doesn’privately make the policy automatically acceptable or convenient)

The Transport servant, Jim Fitzpatrick, wants to crack down (war talk alert) on those who use a car while under the authority of drugs, including legal drugs that can impair concentration. Up to a fifth of drivers killed in highway accidents are originate to have drugs in their system. (it is known that inclusion of cannabis testing ‘data’ grossly distorts this premises set in favour of the elected official whose ‘policy’ of cracking down is expediency pandering to fears at what place there may well be not one. )

An older version of the technology is already being used by the Home Office to test offenders (and unfallen people) for drugs. They are also used conducive to roadside testing by police in countries including Australia, Italy and Croatia. (which still doesn’t make it pass the analytic standard, Australia’s actual trial has not been as good as this would imply)

A swab of spittle is placed in a handheld tester the size of a chip-and-pin machine. Officers are therefore told (by a machine) whether the driver has passed or failed the test and which drugs have been detected. (watch away the poppy seed bun and innumerable other false positives.!)

A (unnamed) spokesperson at the Department for Transport said: “We are working very closely with the Home Office to make sure the approval document needed for roadside devices is completed being of the class who soon as possible. We are serious about tackling the (unquantified) problem of drug-driving.”

Talks have been held betwixt the company producing the technology, Concateno, and the Department as antidote to Transport. Philip Hand, a consultant with Concateno, said: “The new system will be easy for police to exercise and appropriate for roadside tests (sales pitch alert). We are hoping to receive the necessary approval before the devices are ready to have being rolled extinguished at the end of the year.” (absent evidence this intervention is even warranted, in particular, for cannabis, where the correspondence to national danger is unproven or the ‘harms’ of creating unintended social downsides uncosted. )

The Government plans to originate legislation to bring drug-driving in line by drink-driving. (and the evidence for this is? alcohol is a central robust combination of parts to form a whole depressant that has a linear correlation to impairment, whereas for cannabis the determinant is pharmakos ) Other measures proposed in its road safety consultation, published yesterday, include a plan to curse drivers who are twice caught exceeding a speed limit by 20mph. The Government is also allowing for a lowering of the legal alcohol limit from 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood to 50mg ? the level most commonly used throughout the EU. (decreasing the size of the net, is not addressing the recidivist or the grossly impaired…. )

Blair Anderson ?(?