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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Nailing a drug driver Fenton Bresler Telegraph Tuesday 23 Nov 1999 After Telegraph Motoring reported that legislators were having difficulty framing new laws to successfully outlaw drug driving, Fenton Bresler discovered that the law already deals with the problem in a common sense way - it's just that no one knew about it A RISING number of drug-users are taking their cars on to our roads. But as Andrew English revealed in his recent story Unfit to Drive? (October 4), senior police officers have doubts about their ability to prove driving impairment due to drugs. According to Section 4 (5) of the 1988 Road Traffic Act, you cannot be guilty of driving a motor vehicle while unfit to drive through drink or drugs "unless your ability to drive properly is for the time being impaired". Yet, as Andrew wrote, "knowing that a drug is in your system is not the same as proving that it is impairing your driving, and cannabis brings its own problems in this respect". That is because traces of cannabis can remain in the body for several weeks, long after the effects of the drug have worn off. Ironically, the very next week a copy of the latest (19th) edition of Wilkinson's Road Traffic Offences, the motoring lawyers' Bible, landed on my doormat and at once I found a reference to the uniquely authoritative 19-month old High Court decision in Leetham v Director of Public Prosecutions, which goes a long way to helping solve the problem. It is typical of the cack-handed way in which valuable cases are reported in this country that this decision, of immense practical importance, has not appeared in any of the normal law reports or in Current Law, the essential monthly digest of new cases and statutes, but in the highly specialised Road Traffic Reports, whose readership is perhaps not so wide as it should be. In his October 2 article, English wrote: "Senior policemen and MPs are sabre-rattling for more drug-driving laws, but framing legislation on the basis of evidence that a drug is present in a person's body will be difficult in practical terms and poses a civil liberties issue. A person can be prosecuted for illegal drug use, but that is not a motoring offence ú Where's the impairment?" In fact, no such new laws are necessary. If senior police officers and the Crown Prosecution Service had done their homework, they would have known all along that the question does not arise and that impairment can be proved through the application of good old-fashioned common sense. Consider the facts of Leetham v DPP, reported in (1999) Road Traffic Reports on page 29: At about 11.35 pm on Friday evening, February 21, 1997, a police sergeant and constable were travelling in a marked police patrol car along a road in Sittingbourne, Kent, in a 30mph speed area. The sergeant, who was driving, had indicated he wanted to turn left but a Honda Accord driven by Robin Leetham, a self-employed engineer, suddenly appeared in front of him coming from the other direction and overtaking another car. The sergeant had to brake sharply to avoid a collision. He promptly turned his car round and chased after the Honda Accord, blue light on and siren screaming. The Honda eventually stopped and the police constable got out and went over to talk to the driver. He could not smell alcohol on his breath but noticed that his eyes were red, his speech was slurred and his answers were slow. The constable formed the view that he was under the influence of drugs and told him he was going to search him for drugs, but the driver volunteered that he had smoked one cannabis joint earlier that evening and had some cannabis resin on him, which he produced. Taken to Sittingbourne police station, he was seen by a police surgeon who took a blood sample for analysis. A forensic scientist later signed a statement that he had found no alcohol in the blood, but a chemical compound arising from the major active ingredients of cannabis. He could not say when Mr Leetham had last used the drug but stated his opinion that "the effects could include dreamlike euphoria, feelings of relaxation and possible drowsiness, loss of co-ordination and reduced concentration, which might adversely affect driving." Such effects begin almost immediately after use, maximise about 20 minutes later and are relatively short-lived, lasting normally around one to two hours and at most up to about four hours. On October 13, 1997, Robin Leetham was tried at Sittingbourne magistrates' court, charged with driving a mechanically propelled vehicle on a road while unfit to drive through drugs, contrary to Section 4 (1) of the 1988 Act. The two police officers gave evidence, but the police surgeon who took the blood sample was not called, nor was the forensic scientist whose statement was by agreement read to the court. Mr Leetham was the only witness for the defence, admitting that he smoked cannabis fairly regularly because it calmed him down and that he had smoked one joint at about 7-7.30pm that night, but did not drive until about four hours later, by which time he had thought the cannabis would have worn off. He did not dispute that his eyes might have been red, but said he had been working 12-hour days. He also said that he had a deep voice and suffered from dyslexia, which slurred his speech at times. On that evidence, would you have convicted him of driving while his ability to drive was impaired? Remember that there was no scientific evidence as to how much cannabis he had taken into his system, no evidence whatsoever from the police surgeon as to his view of any impaired driving ability, and Mr Leetham had given some explanation as to why his eyes were red and his speech slurred. So would you have been satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of his guilt? In fact, the Sittingbourne magistrates convicted him, fined him £250, ordered his licence to be endorsed and disqualified him from driving for three years because - as they discovered only after finding him guilty - this was his second such offence within 10 years. In March 1998 (although the case only found its way into the Road Traffic Reports nearly a year later!), the High Court rejected his appeal and upheld the conviction. Lord Justice Rose, one of the few senior judges today whose robust common sense is as great as his legal acumen, swept aside Mr Leetham's counsel's argument that medical evidence of impairment should have been called and that the police constable had gone too far in talking about his client's red eyes, slurred speech and slow answers to questions. "The crucial question in this case," said Lord Justice Rose, "is whether there was material, despite the fact that no doctor was called, which justified the justices in concluding that the drugs had impaired the defendant's ability properly to drive." And he answered his own question with these words: "In my judgment, they were entitled to look at all the evidence in the case in relation to the way in which the car was driven, the consumption of cannabis, which the defendant admitted, the presence of cannabis in his blood on subsequent analysis, the effects of that drug, in particular in relation to 'feelings of relaxation and possible drowsiness, loss of co-ordination and reduced concentration' and to put all that evidence with the evidence from the police officers as to the slurred and slow character of the defendant's speech." I have to smile, for I have a definite sense of deja vu. That judgment could have been given back in the Sixties when convictions for drink-driving were habitually obtained by police officers telling a judge - and, in those days, juries - that, as well as smelling alcohol on the defendant's breath, they noticed his eyes were bloodshot, his speech was slurred and he staggered when he moved. Then and now, common sense does sometimes prevail in the law. Following the Telegraph Motoring article "Unfit to drive?", the Government has decided to conduct a study into the effects of cannabis on driving ability; it is also expected to introduce roadside testing for the presence of drugs and a separate test for the impairment of driving ability, as part of the road safety strategy to be published next month.
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