P.E.I. receives $2.5M for drug-impaired driving enforcement

P.E.I. is getting $2.5 million to better tackle drug-impaired driving. The funding will be rolled out over five years and was announced by the federal government Tuesday. 

The money will go toward training officers in standardized field sobriety testing and drug recognition expert evaluation. It will also help police forces purchase more equipment, including oral fluid drug screening devices. And forces will be able to establish dedicated trainers to deliver new and refresher training. 

"It's going to be a great thing for police on P.E.I. and it's going to be a great thing for the public in general because the more officers we have trained, the better we are able to detect and charge people for impaired driving," said Charlottetown police Cst. Ron Kennedy, the Cannabis Act facilitator for the province. 

More officers to be trained

Kennedy said right now, on many police forces, there are usually one or two officers on shift who have the training, who other officers can call on when they pull someone over. The goal of the new funding is to have 89 per cent of front-line officers trained within five years. 

Federal government data from the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019 shows 15 per cent of cannabis users with a valid driver's licence reported driving within two hours of consuming cannabis. 

Kennedy said the new oral tools could help lead to charges in more cases.  

"It doesn't give us a quantity, but what it does is it gives us a definitive answer — a test positive or negative for it in their oral fluid," he said. 

"Whereas if I took you out and performed a standardized field sobriety test I I'm testing for several other drugs as well."

The funding is part of $81 million announced by the federal government for provinces and territories to support public and road safety activities.

More P.E.I. news