PRESS RELEASE - 23rd FEBRUARY, 2004

Edition 40.

Cannabis News Items From Around the World

Teething troubles cloud roadside drugs tests

Sydney Morning Herald, December 16, 2004
Teething troubles cloud roadside drugs tests
By Ruth Pollard, Health Reporter

Just days into Australia's first trial of roadside drug-testing in Victoria, experts are calling on other states to put the brakes on similar studies because of concerns over the test's accuracy and the time it takes to screen motorists.

Under the Victorian system, if a motorist tests positive to drugs, he or she will be required to undergo a second test, which could take between five and 10 minutes to process, leading to warnings of extended traffic delays.

A senior research fellow from the University of Western Australia's school of medicine and pharmacology, Kyle Dyer, said that along with the potential logistical problems, the technology was undergoing constant change.

"Saliva testing is a rapidly developing area, with new companies emerging and new products coming on the market regularly," Dr Dyer said.

The Victorian test - which screens a motorist's saliva for the presence of cannabis and methamphetamines - is already able to be updated because of advances in the technology.

"I would be wanting to wait until the Victorian trial is over before it is extended anywhere - why not wait until those results are out before we jump in?" Dr Dyer said.

Meanwhile the president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, Cameron Murphy, expressed concerns about the accuracy of the tests, and urged the Carr Government to delay the trial it plans to start next year until the technology was of a standard equivalent to the breath-analysis test used to detect alcohol.

"It will catch people who have not broken the law and it will cost them a lot of money to set it right in the courts," Mr Murphy said, warning that the Civil Liberties Union in Southern California had highlighted a number of problems with the roadside tests.

Under the Victorian trial, motorists pulled over for a drug test are required to place a small absorbent pad on their tongues for a few seconds, and wait five minutes for the result.

Police reported that a motorist returned a positive test on Monday, in the first hours of the operation.

Once a motorist has tested positive for drugs, he or she will be asked to move to a police bus and provide two more saliva samples. If a second positive test is returned, it is sent to a labora-tory for confirmation.

Penalties include a $307 fine and the loss of three licence points.

The test, which Dr Dyer said had a good accuracy record, does not detect the presence of prescription drugs or medications and will not pick up if a person is a regular drug user, but has not used drugs that day.

"Saliva gives you a very short window of detection," Dr Dyer said. "If you are a regular cannabis smoker your urine can be positive for a month or longer. With saliva, it will only pick up the parent drug itself, which has a two-to-four hour window period after use.

"A positive [saliva test] means you are under the influence of this drug; a urine test says you have used the drug." Meth- amphetamine can be detected in a saliva test up to 24 hours after ingestion, Dr Dyer said. However, heavy users may still have traces in their saliva up to 48 hours later.

NSW is planning a 12-month trial of roadside random drug-testing, and compulsory blood- testing of all drivers involved in fatal accidents starting late next year, a spokesman for the Roads Minister, Carl Scully, said yesterday. The test will check for methamphetamines, ecstasy and cannabis.

Call to get drug drivers off road

Herald Sun, January 31st, 2005
Call to get drug drivers off road
Peter Mickelburough and Paul Anderson

DRUGGED drivers should be taken off the road and not just fined, the State Opposition said yesterday.

The get-tough call came as police released figures showing 18 of 1855 drivers given roadside saliva tests had taken drugs.
Senior police said a disturbing number had high levels of methamphetamines in their system.

Police Minister Tim Holding said the results showed the much-maligned system, which was still on trial, was working.

"The Government was right to be concerned about drug-driving on our roads, with something like one in 103 positive tests, which compares to a one in 250 positive rate for drink-driving on our roads," he said.

Mr Holding said he was concerned, and a little surprised, by the high levels of methamphetamines detected, but believed the balance of penalties was correct.

The world-first saliva testing regime had a rocky start in December, when the first positive test proved negative in the laboratory after the driver had been paraded before the media.

Police said there had been no false positives since the first two days of testing, when three positive roadside saliva tests proved negative in the lab.

Assistant Commissioner Bob Hastings said changes to the method of saliva testing had seen all subsequent positives backed by laboratory tests.

"People have been properly tested and the results have been properly analysed," he said.

"No one's prosecuted . . . no one's charged until we get the lab result."

Mr Hastings said he was disturbed by the levels of methamphetamine in those tested.

"All of us use the roads, and if people are out there loaded up on this sort of stuff then potentially it's a disaster," he said.

Opposition police spokesman Kim Wells said he strongly supported drug-drive tests but wanted an urgent briefing from Mr Holding to address continuing concerns.

"We are still not confident the method for testing drivers for drugs is accurate," Mr Wells said.

"The Government told us that the (faulty) speed cameras on the Western Ring Rd were 100 per cent accurate, so we have a great deal of scepticism about the accuracy of drug testing."

As a third of drivers killed on Victorian roads were found with drugs other than alcohol in their blood, Mr Wells said the existing penalties appeared inadequate.

A first offence incurs a $307 fine and the loss of three demerit points; subsequent offences a $1227 fine and up to a six-month loss of licence.

"It would make more sense to me that if you tested positive under the influence of drugs, that you would lose your licence," Mr Wells said.

"The issue of demerit points and a fine simply doesn't stack up when you compare it to the penalties we hand out for alcohol. If you are pilled up to your eyeballs, of course people like that we want off the roads."

Between December 13 last year and January 27 this year, 1518 car drivers and 337 truck drivers were randomly drug tested.

Eleven tested positive to methamphetamine, two tested positive to THC (the active component of cannabis), and five tested positive to both drugs.

ABC's "Catalyst" on Random Drug Tests

Catalyst, ABC, Thursdays 8:00pm
Random Drug Tests
Thursday, 24 April 2003

Will drug tests soon be standard?
Drugs are now responsible for more deaths on the road than alcohol, and the most common is marijuana. So the government in Victoria has pledged to introduce the equivalent of the alcohol breath test. Catalyst’s Graham Phillips investigates Australia’s first random roadside drug test.

Philip Swan is searching for the equivalent of the random breath test. For drugs this is a saliva test, where a driver has a swab put under their tongue. But that’s where the random drug-test dream gets problematic. Swan is currently evaluating the wares of a number of instrument companies from around the world to see if there is any product up to the task.

The other question hanging over random drug testing is: what is the equivalent of .05 for substances like marijuana? How many joints could a person smoke and still be capable in the drivers’ seat?

Researchers at Swinburn University are trying to evaluate this. They get volunteers to smoke joints and drink alcohol and then jump behind the wheel of a driving simulator. The scientists then monitor their vital statistics, like how fast they drive, whether they drift out of the lane and how well they respond to sudden surprises on the road.

So far they have managed to dispel one of the great myths about marijuana. While it is true that marijuana drivers tend to drive more slowly, they are not safer. Their weakness is an inability to make quick decisions when something unusual happens on the road. Work is still in progress to see what the equivalent of .05 would be. (full transcript...)

Reporter/Producer: Graham Phillips
Researcher: Graham Phillips

Story Contacts:
Professor Olaf Drummer
Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine
57 Kavanagh St
South Bank VIC Australia
Tel: +61 2 9684 4444

Dr Philip Swann
Manager Drugs, Alcohol and Fatigue
VicRoads
MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA
Ph: +61 3 9854 2708

Dr Katherine Tzambazis
Drugs and Driving Research Unit
Centre for Neuropsychology
BSEE Swinburne Univeristy of Technology
Po Box 218
Hawthorn Victoria 3122
Australia
Ph: +61 3 9214 5757

Kevin Walsh
Biomediq
1 Williams Road
Doncaster
Melbourne Vic Australia
Ph: +61 2 9840 1800

Full Program Transcript:
Narration: The ads have been telling us how dangerous drink-driving is for years. But how dangerous is smoking marijuana and driving?

Male:“I think that made me so paranoid I was driving really slow and more carefully. Then again I did imagine things on the side of the road.”

Graham: Do you reckon it’s a problem on the road?

Male: No,no, drinking is but not pot.

Female: “I’d have to say it’s dangerous because you’re not in full control of your mind.”

Narration: The debate’s being going on for years, but at last we have a definitive answer. For more than a decade, everyone who’s ended up in this Melbourne morgue from a car accident has had their blood analysed…to see if the crash was caused by alcohol, marijuana, amphetamines or other drugs. And Olaf Drummer’s results were staggering.

Professor Olaf Drummer: Drivers who use cannabis and are driving shortly after are almost seven times higher risk of being involved in a fatal crash than a drug free driver.

Narration: In fact, drugs combined kill more people on the roads now than alcohol, and the leading killer drug is marijuana. This result was a genuine surprise, because some studies had shown marijuana was not that dangerous… because it makes you a more cautious driver.

Dr Katherine Tzambazis: Yes, there were some reports suggesting that those who consumed cannabis actually overestimate the effects of the drugs and therefore compensate for those impairing effects.

Narration: But the manager of drugs alcohol and fatigue for Vic Roads, Philip Swann, says many of the academic studies were fundamentally flawed.

Dr Philip Swann: One of the problems we’ve found is that academics are limited by ethics committees to study very low doses and that bears no resemblance to what happens on the road. The sorts of levels that are found in the morgue are much higher.

Narration: With the morgue results leaving little room for argument, Katherine Tzambasis and her team at Melbourne’s Swinburne University are now trying to find out the specific effects on driving, of marijuana’s active ingredient – THC. This is no ordinary joint. It’s been imported from the National Institute on Drug Abuse in America…the only lab in the world that rolls cannabis cigarettes to scientific standards.

Swinburne University: They control how much THC goes into them so we can have the same amount all the time because street marijuana varies.

Narration: This is smoking cannabis scientific style, to make sure a precise dose is received.

Swinburne University: So inhale for two seconds. Hold for 10 seconds. Then exhale. Then wait 60 seconds and do it again.”

Narration: After six regimented puffs, the volunteer’s driving skills are put to the test.

Swinburne University: So we’ll do the driving simulator task now. There are four tasks: two freeway tasks, two city driving tasks.

Narration: The studies have found that the effects of marijuana on driving are quite different to alcohol. Booze makes a driver more likely to speed and to take risks. And marijuana doesn’t do this, but it does make drivers more likely to drift across the road.

Dr Katherine Tzambazis: Specifically your ability to maintain a specific position within a lane, so you tend to have two or more wheels of the vehicle crossing over lanes marked out for traffic coming in the opposite direction or in the same direction. So the impairment that you observe can be quite dangerous in real life driving.

Narration: And when something unexpected happens a cannabis driver is much slower to react.

Dr Philip Swann: Where marijuana THC is so dangerous is that although people tend to slow down, they are really at risk in complex decision making. So if you are driving on a lonely road by yourself in full daylight with no other cars it’s one situation, but if you’re driving in an urban environment with complex intersections, that’s when cannabis really shows up.”

Narration: And cannabis gets into the blood much faster than alcohol. You are as impaired as someone with an alcohol reading of .15 when your cannabis reading is five nanograms per mil.

Dr Philip Swann: When you first smoke the joint, your concentration goes up well over 70 nanograms, sometimes as much as a 100 nanograms, then it quickly drops down to about 20 nanograms and then drops reasonably consistently with time.

Narration: But what many people do is not just smoke and drive, but smoke and drink and drive. To test the effect of that, volunteers consume a few vodkas and orange with their cannabis. And the results were shocking.

Dr Katherine Tzambazis: If you smoked a cannabis cigarette and you had a blood alcohol concentration of .04, which is under the legal limit, that’s actually equivalent to be being a .14 blood alcohol concentration and in those cases reports show that you’re risk of having an accident is increased by 48.

Narration: Not 48 percent; 48 times higher. Philip Swan believes it’s high time we had roadside tests, and he’s currently interviewing companies that say they have the technology to do it. The first question is, what do you test?

Professor Olaf Drummer: Urine is awkward in a roadside setting and it doesn’t give us any indication of recent use. It’s not relevant whether a person used a drug in the past, just so long as they’re not impaired.

Narration: The only body fluid that makes sense for a roadside test is saliva. A sample could be taken at the same time a random breath test is done… to see if the driver was too stoned to drive.

Dr Philip Swann: The recommendations from the experts is that you should allow 4 hours after one joint.

Narration: In Victoria, the government has said they’ll crack down on smoking and driving, by introducing driver drugs tests. But at this stage none of the other state governments are promising it.

A Govt sponsored article on Drug Driving

December, 2004
http://www.science.org.au/nova/085/085key.htm

The Victorian Parliament recently gave motorists something to chew on. In December 2003 it passed legislation empowering police to randomly test drivers for the presence of the active component of cannabis (tetrahydrocannabinol or THC) and methamphetamines (also known as speed, ice and crystal meth). Drivers’ saliva will be tested using an absorbent collector. To collect saliva drivers will be asked to touch their tongues to the collector, place it in their mouths or chew on it. Anyone found guilty of driving with these illicit drugs in their bodies faces fines of up to $1200 and a possible cancellation of their driver’s licence.

Victoria started testing drivers in December 2004, and other Australian states are contemplating similar measures in their efforts to reduce the problem of drug-impaired driving (drug-driving) because it is fast becoming a major road-safety problem.

What is drug-driving?

One way of defining drug-driving is the driving of a motor vehicle while under the influence of drugs other than alcohol (while alcohol is technically a drug, drink-driving is usually treated as a separate issue). Another is the driving of a motor vehicle with the presence of drugs other than alcohol in the system. These two definitions might look pretty much the same but, as we will see, the difference between them is important when it comes to designing legislation.

Drugs of particular concern to road-safety authorities are those that could impact driver performance. They include depressants such as cannabis, methadone and heroin, stimulants such as speed, cocaine and ecstasy, and hallucinogens such as LSD.

Some prescription drugs can also affect driving; tranquillising drugs such as rohypnol and oxazepam, for example, can make users drowsy and almost certainly more liable to err while driving. However, the Victorian drug-driving legislation does not make it an offence to drive while using such drugs.

The increasing threat of drug-driving

Drug-driving appears to be quite prevalent in Australia. A 2003 survey of 19–23-year-olds in Victoria found that more than half had used such drugs in their lifetime, while 28 per cent of surveyed males and 17 per cent of females admitted to driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of an illicit drug. Another survey in Western Australia in 2001 estimated that 17 per cent of drivers aged 20–29 years had driven a vehicle while under the influence of drugs. A third survey, this time of injecting drug-users in Sydney, revealed that 88 per cent of those users who had driven a vehicle in the previous 12 months had drug-driven in that period. About 4 per cent of respondents (6 per cent of men and 2 per cent of women) to the 2001 National Drug Strategy Household Survey admitted that they had driven while under the influence of drugs in the previous 12 months.

Perhaps the most worrying study of all was carried out by researchers at the Department of Forensic Medicine at Monash University. The study looked for the presence of drugs in 3398 drivers who died in crashes in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia in the period 1990-1999. It found that drugs (other than alcohol) were present in 26.7 per cent of all dead drivers. The study also found that the prevalence of drugs increased over the decade.

How drugs can affect driving

While such a finding doesn’t prove a direct relationship between drug use and road deaths, it serves to alert legislators to the problem. But they faced some significant practical problems in designing laws to limit drug-driving. The intensity and nature of a person’s reaction to a drug depends on several factors, and therefore deciding on a threshold amount – over which driving might be considered to be impaired – is very difficult. A person’s reaction to drugs is influenced, for instance, by past exposure to the drug and by genetic differences, as well as by the ‘quality’ of the drug, which for illicit drugs is highly variable. Further complicating things is the common practice of using more than one drug (including alcohol) simultaneously. These factors and others make predicting the effects of drugs on driving an inexact science.

Nevertheless, some general observations can be made. Depressant drugs tend to slow reactions and reduce concentration. Experiments have shown that users of cannabis find it difficult to stay in one lane on the road and may be unaware that they are drifting into the path of oncoming traffic. Drivers under the influence of cannabis may also find complex driving situations, such as busy roads or uncontrolled intersections, more difficult to negotiate than they would when driving drug-free. Stimulants like speed might make drivers over-confident and aggressive, while those under the influence of hallucinogens like LSD might react erratically to imaginary obstacles or sounds.

Testing for impairment

Two basic approaches can be taken to detect drug-drivers: testing for the impairment of driving performance; and testing for the presence of drugs.

The impairment approach, which takes as a starting point our first definition of drug-driving, involves the use of tests like the Standardised Field Sobriety Test (Box 1, Standardised Field Sobriety Test), in which drivers are required to perform tasks designed to test the extent to which they are intoxicated by alcohol. This test has been adapted to measure the extent to which a driver’s use of drugs might hinder performance equivalent to certain levels of blood alcohol content (BAC). The Standardised Field Sobriety Test and other similar impairment tests, including the more refined ‘drug evaluation and classification’ program, have been shown to measure the degree of drug-induced impairment at quite a high level of reliability, although they are far from foolproof.

In most Australian states, police use what might be termed a ‘driving under the influence’ approach, in which they are able to arrest a driver they suspect of driving under the influence of a drug to the extent that driving performance is impaired. The suspect may be required first to take an impairment test and then to provide a blood or urine sample, which is tested for the presence of various drugs.

Presence of drugs

The limitation of the driving-under-the-influence approach is that it is only implemented when police have cause to suspect a driver and doesn’t act as a strong deterrent to drug-driving. An option for overcoming this is random testing, in which drivers are pulled over arbitrarily for drug-testing, just as is done for alcohol.

Testing for drugs at the roadside, however, is not as simple as it is for alcohol. For a start, the range of drugs that could impair driving is wide, although their actual impacts on safety are often not well known. Moreover, few drugs are detectable in the breath like alcohol. A sample of bodily fluid may therefore be needed, but collecting such fluid – particularly blood and urine – can be a messy and invasive process. For this reason, biochemists have spent a great deal of time and energy on developing tests using bodily fluids that are more easily collected, such as saliva or sweat.

There’s another difference between random drug-testing and random alcohol testing. The relationship between BAC and the risk of crashing is well known; the BAC threshold, which is set at 0.05 per cent in Australia, is a well-accepted standard. Setting thresholds for other drugs is more difficult: the study of the relationship between most drugs and driving is still relatively new and little is known about the relationship between drug use and crash risk.

In Victoria’s planned introduction of random drug-testing, drivers will be stopped at random and asked to submit a saliva sample. This will be placed in a device that uses a process known as immunoassay to test for the presence of specific drugs.

Drivers who return a positive result from the first saliva test will be required to provide a second sample; if that is also positive they will be interviewed by police and allowed to leave (but not to drive). The saliva sample will be sent to a laboratory for more accurate testing, which may take some days; if this confirms the presence of an illicit drug, the driver may be prosecuted.

Impairment or presence?

Critics argue that the link between the ‘presence’ approach and road safety is tenuous, since the detection of an illicit drug in a person’s saliva does not indicate whether that person is fit to drive or not. Civil libertarians suggest that the approach constitutes a significant breach of privacy for what may be a negligible effect on road safety. But advocates say that the real power of random testing is in the message it sends: drug-driving is dangerous, and it’s about time drivers were up to speed with that.

Excerpt from: "Drug and alcohol surveillance: how do you know it is working?"
http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/articles/18/0c010b18.asp

Saliva is an alternative test medium to urine. Although the concept is old, commercial saliva testing kits have only recently been marketed. They use test-strip methodology similar to urine test strips.

Saliva has two potential advantages. First, saliva can be collected without a need for privacy, which limits opportunities for tampering and adulteration. Second, saliva tests generally become negative earlier after drug use so, theoretically, a negative saliva test might mean that a drug user is no longer impaired.

For most drugs, this is a rather unsafe approach because we do not know the true duration of impairment after use. In the case of occasional use of cannabis, we do know that impairment passes before the urine becomes negative. However, cannabis products partition poorly into saliva, so the role of saliva in cannabis testing has yet to be validated.

There is little published information on the performance of saliva testing in the workplace, so we cannot make generalisations about the all-important rates of false positives and negatives, compared with rates for urine test strips and laboratory screening.

There are no national or international standards that equate to the AS4308 standards for urine testing, so evidential value of an initial positive or negative saliva result has yet to be tested.

While some of the collected saliva sample can be subjected to a confirmatory test at an accredited laboratory, there is presently little experience in interpreting the test results and no standards to define the relevance of any measured level.

Without such standards, it may be very difficult to find legal validation for any action taken against a worker who returns positive results.

In short, it is too early to judge the future role of saliva testing in an overall drug and alcohol safety policy. It may prove useful for distinguishing intoxicated drug users from those who are simply still excreting drugs in urine. National standards, suitable confirmatory methods and workplace validation are awaited.

Human Resources Magazine
February 23, 2005
http://www.humanresourcesmagazine.com.au/articles/69/0C01F369.asp?Type=60&Category=876

CBH Resources took over the Pasminco-Elura Mine and renamed it Endeavor Mine in September 2003. The mine’s drug and alcohol policy was drafted around three years ago with workforce, management and medical input. Karen Prior, Endeavor’s occupational health, safety and environment superintendent says there are no issues within the 250-strong workforce, because drug and alcohol testing in mining is standard and the policy has been in place for years.

“In fact, our people think we are a bit softer on them, because we do saliva testing for drugs, rather than urine testing,” she says. Saliva testing only shows up marijuana usage in the last four to five hours, but 24 hours for all the other drugs, including amphetamines (speed), opiates (heroin, morphine, codeine), cocaine, benzodiazepine (valium and so on) and THC (cannabis). The advantages of saliva over urine testing are the speed of obtaining results (10 minutes versus several days) and it is less invasive.

“You have a right to be who you want to be on your days off, but you also have a responsibility to yourself and those you work with, not to be impaired when you go to work,” says Prior.

The Securetec Drugwipe II Twin

Victorian Law specifying the saliva tests acceptable as evidence.

8. New regulations 207C to 207H inserted

After regulation 207B of the Principal Regulations insert—
"207C. Oral fluid testing devices
(1) The device prescribed for the purposes of section 55D of the Act is the oral fluid testing device known as the SECURETEC DRUGWIPE TWIN or the SECURETEC DRUGWIPE II TWIN.
(2) The devices prescribed for the purposes of section 55E of the Act are—
(a) the oral fluid testing device known as the SECURETEC DRUGWIPE II TWIN COMBO;
(b) the oral fluid testing device known as the Cozart RapiScan.

Securetec Drug Detection - the distributor's rave.

In a world's first, Victorian motorists are being subjected to random roadside saliva testing for illegal drugs. The DrugWipe® rapid tests from Securetec are proudly and exclusively distributed by Pathtech.

According to sources, the NSW Police will be using the same product.

"Thanks to leading-edge antibody detection technology, the test can be applied non-invasively, using saliva. This means that authorities can detect illicit substances such as cannabis and methamphetamines quickly and reliably both at the road side and in the station. This method has many advantages over urine sampling and is much easier to handle for both the tester and the person being tested.

The test using the Securetec DrugWipe II Twin THC/MET device takes five minutes. A positive initial test is verified in the drug bus using the Securetec device again with a sample divider. If the second test indicates a positive result, the sample will be sent to a laboratory for verification.

The drug testing devices are highly accurate and reliable, having undergone rigorous testing.

Roadside drug testing promises to have a profound effect on the safety of motorists. Although initially only two classes of drug will be tested for, the DrugWipe devices can also detect nanogram residues of opiates, cocaine and benzodiazepines. The future application of these devices are of interest to customs and drug enforcement agencies, prisons, and the workplace."

Go to this page to download and save an introduction to Drug Wipe II Twin THC/MET (note file size is 13Mb).
http://www.pathtech.com.au/pathtech/home/consumer/drugdetection/securetec.sok

Back to THE CANNABIS NEWS INDEX