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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Doctors help write drug-drive guide
John Carvel, social affairs editor The Guardian
Wednesday 30 Jun 2004 The Department of Transport is working with the medical profession to draw up guidelines on driving under the influence of prescription drugs and narcotics. They will warn patients that long-term medication to prevent the recurrence of cancer and over-the-counter remedies for hay fever may impair drivers' performance as often as alcohol. The plan was disclosed yesterday at the British Medical Association's annual conference in Llandudno. Doctors said the guidelines would replace the information disseminated 10 years ago when many now commonly used remedies were not yet available. They will include tentative scientific findings about tests to detect whether drivers have taken illegal drugs before getting behind the wheel. Vivienne Nathanson, the BMA's head of science and ethics, said the tests were not yet sophisticated enough to establish whether the presence of the drug in the blood indicated unfitness to drive. Dr Nathanson said: "Traditionally we have thought about fitness to drive specifically in terms of alcohol, but here we are now looking at all the medical aspects. "We are thinking directly about illnesses and indirectly about the drugs that are used to treat illnesses. "We are also looking at self-medication for simple illnesses like hay fever, whether people who are taking them are fit to drive, how they can assess that, and how they can be helped to understand the law." The BMA was looking with the department at whether having the active constituents of cannabis in the bloodstream could be regarded as an indicator of unfitness to drive. "It is more complex than alcohol, where there is a clear relationship between a certain level of blood alcohol and a specific level of impairment," Dr Nathanson said. The drugs that may have an impact on driving include sleeping pills, sedatives, anti-depressants, hay fever treatments and codeine-based painkillers.
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