Sudbury police training to recognize high drivers

It will be a twelve-step process if you're suspected of driving high, a Sudbury police officer says.

With marijuana set to become legal in 2018, Greater Sudbury Police Services is expecting to ramp up its training to better detect impaired drivers.

The 29 officers in Sudbury's Traffic Management Unit are trained to conduct standard field sobriety tests said Constable Andrew Hinds, but it will take specially trained officers to take over if the driver is under the influence of drugs.

Sudbury currently has four drug recognition evaluation officers.

"[Suspected drivers] are brought to a drug recognition expert," Hinds said, "who then puts that driver again through a twelve-step process."

"At the end that officer is able to determine what category of drug is influencing this driver," he said.

Officers training in U.S

The drug recognition experts take part in a three-week training course with a portion of it done in Florida and Arizona, Hinds said. The first component of the course is in-class, and the last week is a hands-on testing of live suspects.

Hinds said police aren't waiting until next year to stop suspected drivers.

"The problem isn't going to start July 1st of 2018," he said. "We are already stopping people on our roadways that are impaired by drug and of course, impaired by alcohol."

"I can tell you up-to-date I think we've already done about five drug recognition evaluations already this year."

Hinds said he hopes that the consequences of impaired driving—  whether drug or alcohol induced—  will keep people from getting behind the wheel.

"People sometimes don't put the impaired by alcohol and impaired by drug together, not realizing that it's the same offence," Hinds said. "It's the same consequences, it has the same effect on your driving and potentially you can seriously injure somebody or kill them on the road whether it's having a couple of beers or having a cannibis cigarette."