Dangers of Drugged Driving

HOUSTON—Drinking and driving have long been considered a dangerous and potentially deadly combination, and in recent years, instances of Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) have been on the decline in the United States. Many credit this positive trend to the multipronged and concerted effort of many stakeholders—including educators, legislators, law enforcement, media and community organizations such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving—and improved methods of screening and prosecuting suspected parties.

But while fewer drivers may be electing to drive drunk, a growing number are getting behind the wheel impaired by illegal and prescription drugs. Experts in the field say cracking down on "drugged driving" must become a national priority before it spirals any further out of control.

"Ten years ago we didn’t have nearly the amount of drug-impaired cases as we have now," said Sgt. Susan Cotter, a drug recognition expert with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, in an interview with the Houston Chronicle. Blood tests performed on drivers are detecting more traces of prescription drugs such as Xanax, Soma and hydrocodone—all substances that can adversely affect judgment, reaction time and motor skills. The tests are also increasingly detecting mixtures of prescription and illegal drugs taken with alcohol, which can exacerbate impairment.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) 2007 National Roadside Survey, more than 16 percent of weekend, nighttime drivers tested positive for illegal, prescription or over-the-counter medications. And the 2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) found an estimated 10 million people aged 12 and older drove under the influence of illicit drugs during the year prior to being surveyed.

In addition, NSDUH reported the following:

• In 2008, an estimated 12.4 percent of persons aged 12 and older (30.9 million persons) drove under the influence of alcohol at least once in the past year. This percentage has dropped since 2002, when it was 14.2 percent.
• Driving under the influence of an illicit drug or alcohol was associated with age. In 2008, an estimated 7.2 percent of youth aged 16 or 17 drove under the influence. This percentage steadily increased with age to reach a peak of 26.1 per- cent among young adults aged 21 to 25. Beyond the age of 25, these rates showed a general decline with increasing age.
• Also in 2008, among persons aged 12 and older, males were nearly twice as likely as females (16 percent versus 9 percent, respectively) to drive under the influence of an illicit drug or alcohol in the past year.

In recent years, more attention has been given to drugs other than alcohol that have increasingly been recognized as hazards to road traffic safety. Some of this research has been done in other countries or in specific regions within the United States, and the prevalence rates for different drugs used vary accordingly. Overall, marijuana is the most prevalent illegal drug detected in impaired drivers, fatally injured drivers, and motor vehicle crash victims. Other drugs also implicated include benzodiazepines, cocaine, opiates, and amphetamines.

Drugged driving laws have lagged behind alcohol-related driving legislation, in part because of limitations in current technology for determining drug levels and resulting impairment. For alcohol, detection of blood alcohol concentration (BAC) is relatively simple, and since concentrations greater than 0.08 percent have been shown to impair driving performance, that is the legal limit in the U.S. But for illicit drugs, there is no agreed-upon limit for which impairment has been reliably demonstrated, and determining current drug levels can be difficult, since some can linger in the body for days or weeks after initial ingestion.

In the absence of Federal legislation addressing the problem of drugged driving, some states have adopted the per se standard. These laws indicate that it is illegal to operate a motor vehicle if there is any detectable amount of a controlled substance in a driver’s blood. This has been the national standard for commercial drivers since 1988, and is also widely used in the developed world outside the U.S., including Western European nations, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It is beneficial because prosecutors don’t have to meet more complex standards of guilt, and drivers know that if they do not abstain completely from the use of illegal drugs before getting behind the wheel, they face the risk of a DWI conviction.

Other State laws define "drugged driving" as driving when a drug "renders the driver incapable of driving safely" or causes the driver to be impaired". In addition, 44 states and the District of Columbia have implemented Drug Evaluation and Classification Programs, designed to train police officers as Drug Recognition Experts. Officers lean to identify characteristics in a person’s behavior and appearance that may be associated with drug intoxication. If the officer suspects drug intoxication, a blood or urine sample is submitted to a laboratory for confirmation.

In addition to these efforts, the Office of National Drug Control Policy is calling for a reduction in accidents and fatalities over the next five years and for more education and research on how drugs affect the ability to drive.

"We’ve made progress on DWI," said R. Gil Kerlikwoske, President Barak Obama’s top drug policy adviser. "We need a very clear message on not using drugs and driving."

Locally, the Harris County Sheriff’s Department launched a targeted DWI enforcement program in July that includes no refusal and public education. Two dozen agencies in the Houston area also have police officers that have undergone drug-recognition training.

A new Texas state law, which went into effect last September, requires mandatory blood testing in specific DWI violations, including when the driver has two or more prior DWI convictions, the driver has a child younger than 15 in the car or the driver causes a fatality or injury. It has helping catch drugged drivers who might go undetected with a breath test.