Marijuana-impaired drivers a challenge for Saint John police, says chief

If marijuana is legalized Canada — as the Trudeau government says it will be — in nine months, Saint John police Chief John Bates says attempting to crack down on impaired driving will be like "trying to drain an Olympic-sized pool with a garden hose in a rainstorm."

The chief travelled to Ottawa this week to speak to the standing committee on justice and human rights, asking that parliamentarians delay legalization to give policing agencies more time to prepare.

"If we're ready by 2018, I think it's going to be barely," Bates said in an interview Tuesday. "Once the legislation is passed, the burden of enforcing the law and ensuring public safety will fall to the frontline police officer.

"We owe it to them to get this right."

Harsher penalties for impaired driving

Bates said the proposed Bill C-46, which  is designed to deter people from driving while impaired by marijuana, has the potential to be a "fine piece of legislation" — but it's going to take time, money and training to enforce.

"It's going to be a slow process," Bates said. "With the legalization of cannabis, we're going to see an increase in impaired driving across the country."

The first section of Bill C-46 amends the provisions of the Criminal Code that deal with offences and procedures relating to drug-impaired driving, including making driving with a blood drug concentration over the limit a criminal offence, establishing what those blood drug concentrations are, and authorizing police to demand drivers submit to blood or saliva testing.

The second part of the bill introduces tougher maximum penalties and fines for drunk driving and authorizes mandatory roadside screening for alcohol.

Testing technology needs work

In a bid to get ahead of the predicted increase in impaired driving, Canadian police have been looking at oral fluid testing kits. Drivers suspected of impairment are asked provide a swab of their spit, which is tested for THC.

A potential issue is that the kits only detect "likely usage" within a certain timeframe, not "definite usage."

And unlike breathalyzer testing, there's no correlation between having "likely" used marijuana recently and legally-defined levels of impairment. A daily toker, for example, might test positive for THC because of a joint smoked the night before but not actually be impaired at the time of the test.

Lack of trained officers

Giving the flaws in current roadside testing technology, Bates said, policing agencies are working to train additional officers in standard field sobriety tests.

In New Brunswick right now, we probably have 18 drug recognition experts and 105 sobriety test officers. That's probably around 45 per cent of what we need by population.- Saint John Police Chief John Bates

In early 2018, Bates said, the Saint John Police Force has also committed to training two officers as Drug Recognition Experts — officers who will receive intensive training in the United States that enable them to "recognize drugs being consumed by motorists," according to Bates.

With more roadside testing, new training, and need to administer standard field sobriety tests, "that's where we see a bottleneck," said Bates.

"In New Brunswick right now we probably have 18 drug recognition experts and 105 sobriety test officers. That's probably around 45 per cent of what we need by population," he said.

Delay unlikely

The federal government has committed up to $274 million Canada-wide to help implement Bill C-46.

"About $81 million of that will go toward law enforcement training, and some of that will come to New Brunswick," Bates said. "But even if we doubled the number of drug recognition experts in the province over the next five years, it still wouldn't give us the number that we think we need."

Bates doesn't think legalization will actually be delayed, he said.

But he remains optimistic that police in the province can adapt.  

"The government of New Brunswick is working on establishing regulations and changes to the traffic act to adapt to Bill C-46," he said. "There's a lot of work being done at the provincial level."

"I'm hopeful that we're going to be ready."