MADD expands message to include pot impairment
MAID just doesn’t sound as powerful an acronym as MADD when it comes to combating Canada’s No. 1 criminal killer.
So don’t expect Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) to change its well-known name anytime soon to Mothers Against Impaired Driving (MAID), even though the legalization of cannabis for adult recreational use in Canada has created a whole new concern on the streets. “We’re done with the term drunk driving,” MADD Windsor & Essex County community leader Chaouki Hamka told more than 600 students at the official launch Thursday of this year’s Red Ribbon campaign at Catholic Central high school.
For more than 30 years, MADD has used its annual Red Ribbon campaign to focus on the dangers of festive-season drinking and
driving. Most of those attending the high school assembly are too young to legally consume cannabis, but the Oct. 17 legalization of pot for those 19 and over has, for many, ended the drug ’s negative public stigma.
Whether it’s booze or grass, however, both alter the user’s perception of reality and can endanger the lives of those who consume and get behind the wheel under the influence, as well as their passengers and others. Hamka said young people suffer the highest death and injury rate per kilometre driven and young Canadians are among the world’s highest users of cannabis.
The criminal penalties remain the same, whether a motorist is nabbed for impaired driving while drunk or while high, students were told.
“There’s been a cultural change with legalization, so it’s important we get that message out,” said Windsor police Staff Sgt. Sean Bender, who also spoke at the assembly. Locally, impaired driving charges are up this year, he said, with more cannabis-related cases among them, including a recent “disturbing ” instance of a 17-yearold motorist nabbed while driving stoned.
Officers from every area police force, as well as other emergency service providers, attended the Nov. 1 launch of this year’s Project Red Ribbon, which runs until Jan. 7. Showing a red ribbon, whether on a car, bike or purse, is a way of telling others you’ve made a commitment to driving safe and sober, said Catholic Central school principal Danielle Desjardins-Koloff. With the approaching season of office parties and festive gatherings of friends and families, Amanda Allen of Windsor & Essex Crime Stoppers was among several speakers urging hosts to ask guests in advance what their plans are to get home. Whether it’s taking a cab or public transit, having a designated driver, calling Uber or spending the night, Hamka said it’s important for partiers to make those plans before their judgment is clouded by the use of alcohol or drugs.
Bender said a cop’s worst job is having to knock on a door at 2 a.m. to inform parents their child has been killed in a crash. Hamka said up to 1,500 Canadians are killed annually in crashes involving impaired driving, with up to 65,000 others being injured.
“I’ve had to grieve beautiful young minds,” said Desjardins-Koloff, who was one of the authority figures urging people to refuse to get into a vehicle with an impaired driver or to make the difficult decision of reporting such an individual.
“It might be the most important decision you ever make in your life,” she said.
Hamka said it’s something that friends who care about friends should do.
Before he graduated from Catholic Central himself in 2006, “I made bad decisions to make myself look cool with the girls ... if you’re not alive, what’s the point?” Within MADD at the national level, Hamka said there had been discussion about possibly changing the organization’s name in recognition of drugs being increasingly of concern when it comes to impaired driving.
For now, however, when it comes to impaired driving, MADD remains MADD.