Random Roadside Drug Testing Legislation Opposed
The Queensland Council for Civil Liberties calls upon the government to withdraw its legislation to permit random roadside drug testing of drivers.
Mr. Cope President of the QCCL says, “The government says that it is introducing legislation to improve road safety. However, the first thing it has done is to create an offence to simply have a drug in your system when driving even though there is no evidence that your driving has been impaired by the drug.”
Secondly, it places the onus on the driver to prove that the drug test is wrong when there is serious scientific debate about the accuracy of the test.
The first thing that the new bill does is to insert a section in to the Transport Operation (Road Use Management) Act which creates an offence to simply be driving a vehicle with one of the prescribed drugs in your system. The Council opposes this for 2 reasons. First of all, this is supposed to be an Act about road safety. It should only create offences when road safety is affected. This creates a new precedent for Queensland by making the mere consumption of a drug an offence.
Equally dangerously the legislation then goes on to reverse the onus of proof as to whether or not the drug test is accurate. There is a significant scientific question mark over the accuracy of these tests with a number of authorities claiming they produce a significant number of false positives. In those circumstances the Council says the ordinary rules should apply, that is if the defendant contests the accuracy of the test it should for the police to prove that it was correct.
Mr. Cope says, “The problem the government has is that so far science has been unable to establish a clear relationship between the amount of a drug in your system and your ability to drive. It is quite a different situation with alcohol where there is a clear correlation between the level of alcohol in your bloodstream and your capacity to drive. The government then is forced to introduce this draconian legislation.”
The Council accepts that the police should be entitled to take drug tests but they should only be entitled to do so where the police are able to point to evidence that a person has been driving unsafely and they cannot find any other reason for it such as alcohol. So that if the police observe a wandering driver on the road and cannot detect alcohol they should be entitled to take a drug test. However, the onus of establishing the drug test is accurate should remain on the police.
ENDS