this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2024
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Risk that roadside drug testing could make roads less safe (www.rnz.co.nz)
submitted 1 week ago by purrtastic@lemmy.nz to c/newzealand@lemmy.nz
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"Drivers who take medicinal cannabis for cancer or mental health or pain relief, are not willing to put themselves in a position where they are potentially going to be prosecuted for driving while taking a medication that is prescribed," she said.

"These people are often very conscious of not driving when they feel impaired by their substance but the legislation as it stands, it doesn't matter if you are impaired or not, it's only if the substance is in your system.

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[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thanks for this! I read through a bunch of your link and had many of my questions answered. It seems pretty clear that people want a way to test similar to breath testing so some government made one up, despite marijuana impairment not being correlated to blood levels in the same way.

Was this legislation introduced by the previous government? Did it go through the select committee process?

[–] sambrown@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

You're right. They were looking for something like breath testing for alcohol. You can see that in the bill history.

On legislation.govt.nz, you can see the legislative history under the "View whole" tab.

Legislative history

  • 30 July 2020: Introduction (Bill 317–1)
  • 4 August 2020: First reading and referral to Transport and Infrastructure Committee
  • 17 June 2021: Reported from Transport and Infrastructure Committee (Bill 317–2)
  • 11 August 2021: Second reading
  • 16 February 2022: Committee of the whole House (Bill 317–3)
  • 8 March 2022: Third reading
  • 11 March 2022: Royal assent

If you go back through all the versions and amendments, you can see they originally tried to introduce a saliva test. The transport minister then recommended blood tests. One could speculate that was due to research and submissions.

Committee of the Whole House included amendments to use saliva only as an indicator of use, while relying on blood tests to measure levels. This enables officers to administer compulsory road-side oral swabs as a precursor to taking someone in for a blood test.

Section 71A "Who must undergo first oral fluid test", which includes "a driver of, or a person attempting to drive, a motor vehicle on a road". This enables random roadside testing without a specific reason. This was acknowledged as a violation of NZBORA which was deemed in the public interest by the Land Transport Act 1998.

So, if you drive a car in any mental state, get ready for the cops to stick stuff in your mouth.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yeah, based on the link in your first comment the answer is that there is basically no way to test impairment without just giving people impairment tests. So even though we may have moved to this because saliva tests are a bit dodgy, it's probably not much better.

Honestly, I think we should just throw loads more money into getting self-driving cars sorted. Well, I guess there is already loads of money being thrown at it so we should wait it out. Then we can just ban driving and solve the whole problem.