Police unlikely to meet pot training goal by deadline

Edmonton police are ramping up training to combat drug-impaired driving ahead of Canada’s cannabis legalization.

But the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police says it is unlikely to reach its goal of having 2,000 officers trained to spot drug-impaired drivers when marijuana becomes legal later this year.

There are two international programs currently in place that are the focus of the training effort: Standardized Field Sobriety Testing (SFTS) and Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) training, said Edmonton police Const. Braydon Lawrence, one of two impaired driving unit officers addressing a city-hosted crowd at the International Conference on Traffic Safety Monday.

Officers perform the approximately seven-minute sobriety test to determine if further evaluation is required by a drug recognition expert who, after an in-custody evaluation, can recommend a urine or blood sample be taken. Only once the laboratory test is confirmed can a charge be laid. But such expertise doesn’t come cheap.

“It is very expensive to train the experts,” said Lawrence prior to the Monday presentation at the Shaw Conference Centre.

Although the 80-hour DRE course can be run in-house, initial certification is only done in two locations in the United States. And attaining spots is a competitive process. Recertification then requires four evaluations every two years for which members may not be available, said Lawrence.

By the end of 2018, city police expect to have certified another 20 DREs, bringing the total number to 44, said Lawrence.

The third phase of training may also be extended and expanded to include the 40-hour SFTS training. The goal is to have 33 per cent of the service (or about 500 members) SFTS trained within the next five years, said Lawrence.

The chiefs of police association warned the government last fall that its members need more time to train officers. At current rates of training, it will take more than five years before Canada hits 2,000 trained officers.