QUT’s Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety professor Jeremy Davey said up to a third of all motorists who crashed were found to be under the influence of drugs.
“The current drug tests in Australia are picking up levels of drugs in a person and that person is most likely to be impaired by the effects of the drug. It’s more recent use as opposed to use numbers of days ago or weeks ago,” Prof Davey said.
He said “urban myths” would be fuelled by a recent case in Lismore, in northern NSW, when a driver claimed he tested positive nine days after smoking marijuana.
“Depending on the drug and amount of drug … you’re looking at hours to 48 hours,” Prof Davey said.
The Courier-Mail revealed this week that almost one in every three motorists caught driving under the influence on Queensland roads last year was high on drugs.
It comes as Queensland Police admit their drug-testing capabilities only mirror the basic, early alcohol testing when it was first rolled out decades ago.
Assistant Commissioner Mike Keating said: “We saw that with alcohol 25 years ago where it was simply an indicator but we’ve been able to address that through the interests of research people and come up with technologies with breathalysers that are clearly giving us intoxication levels.”
Prof Davey agreed that it paralleled early drink-driving testing. “We’re just starting to put the roadside measurements on. We’re still in the early developmental stages of equipment,” he said.
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