Nimbin HEMP Embassy
Drug Testing

Drug Testing

In recent times, the NSW Police have introduced random roadside drug-testing…
aimed at cannabis, MDMA & amphetamines#.

This is a very blunt tool though and the test used can identify THC in the bloodstream hours, days and sometimes weeks afterwards.  Consequently many people are losing their driving licences despite NOT being “under the influence”.  Effectively, pot-users are being penalised not because their driving is impaired but because they were exposed to cannabis sometime in recent living memory.

The Nimbin HEMP Embassy acknowledges that cannabis can impair driving and would support roadside drug testing IF it was based on preventing this.  As the test now stands, it is simply one more weapon in the culture war which has been waged on illegal drug users for decades.  An accurate scale of intoxication and how this impairs driving ability needs to be established.

#Interestingly, the test is not tuned to detect cocaine or various prescription drugs that actually DO impair driving abilities.  Funnily enough, these also seem to be the drugs-of-choice of cops, lawyers & politicians.