It’s 5pm on a weekday in Guildford, Surrey. For an hour, members of Surrey Police’s Vanguard Road Safety team have been stopping motorists to warn them about the dangers of driving under the influence of drink and drugs, when they strike ‘lucky’ and nab a drug-driver. Clues?
His car reeks of cannabis and there’s a box of the stuff on his dashboard. The driver’s saliva is found to contain illegal levels of THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis, set at two micrograms per litre of blood. In light users, THC can remain in the blood for up to seven hours, but in heavier users it’s at least 24 hours. Some users constantly microdose, so the drug never leaves their system.
The roadside test, which takes around eight minutes to process, can also detect cocaine (legal limit 10mg), but on this occasion there’s no trace. The driver is told to get out of his car then is handcuffed and instructed to wait on the grass verge in view of passing motorists and a small crowd of onlookers.
He will be taken to a police station where his blood will be tested for other drugs including ecstasy, LSD, ketamine and heroin. The station test can detect drugs taken several days before, but the results take up to four months to come through. During this period, he may continue to drive but will have the uncertainty of the results hanging over him. If they’re positive, a court file will be prepared and a date will be set for his trial. If found guilty of drug-driving, he will receive a minimum 12-month driving ban, an unlimited fine linked to his income and a criminal record.
His motor insurance will go through the roof. The same penalties apply to a driver found guilty of drink-driving.
Coincidentally, as he is being tested at the roadside, so too is another driver – a young mother of two. She casually tells the police officer she smoked cannabis the previous day (when stopped, many users freely admit to the habit, suggesting they don’t appreciate the consequences). The officer needs no further excuse to test, but the result is negative, and after receiving advice about the dangers of drink- and drug-driving she’s sent on her way.