DRUG TEST IS A GAME CHANGER..
» Dopey drivers busted 3 times quicker than before » Cops warn users they’ll still be detected days later
GARDAI have doubled the number of people they are catching for driving while on drugs – as senior officers say it’s a problem that’s getting out of control, an Irish Sunday Mirror probe can reveal.
However, a revolutionary roadside test is finally giving the force the upper hand in tackling dangerous drug driving.
“It is a game changer for us,” Inspector Paul Donohoe told us as he showed us the Drug Wipe 6 S mobile testing system in operation.
Inspector Donohoe, who is head of the roads policing unit in the Garda Carlow/kilkenny/waterford Division, says the new test means they can catch four drug drivers in the time the old apparatus would detect just one.
The old system saw gardaí use equipment that processed one test every half hour – but Drug Wipe 6 S takes just 10 minutes to produce a roadside result.
Inspector Donohoe says that means the force is increasing the number of drug drivers it takes off the road.
He was speaking to the Irish Sunday Mirror as he and his unit mounted a snap, hour-long checkpoint on the outskirts of Kilkenny last Monday – the first Bank Holiday of the year.
CHECKPOINT
Gardaí now have powers to mount a Mandatory Intoxicant Testing, or MIT, checkpoint that allows officers to test random motorists to see if they are over the drink driving limit, or have drugs in their system.
Gardaí mounting an MIT operation do not have to form an opinion that a motorist is intoxicated before testing them – and that and the new Drug Wipe 6 S piece of equipment means officers are increasing the number of drivers they catch breaking the law.
With the new equipment, which only came on stream in late 2022, motorists are asked to run a pad along their tongue to draw a sample of their saliva. The saliva is analysed just like a COVID antigen test – and a result comes up within 10 minutes.
The testing kit can detect cocaine, heroin, cannabis and Benzodiazepines – all of which impair driving.
If the roadside test comes back positive, the driver is arrested and brought to a local Garda station – where a blood test is taken from them.
That sample is then sent to the medical bureau of road safety in Dublin, where it is tested by experts.
Each illegal drug has a limit – such as 10 nanograms of drug per millilitre of blood in the case of cocaine
And if the result comes back over that, the driver faces prosecution – including a fine and being put off the road from anywhere between one year to six, depending on how high the drugs concentration was and whether the driver was impaired.
Inspector Donohoe told the Irish Sunday Mirror that the new system saw his officers double the number of drug drivers they caught.
He said: “From our eyes of detecting drug driving, it’s a game changer.
“It’s the same as an antigen test ( for
COVID). It will show drugs in the system within around five minutes. “It tells us what drug they have taken and then they are arrested. “Our drug driving detections have over doubled because of it “We can test more people because it takes from start to finish 10 minutes. “We are getting three to four tests now in the same time as one of the older ones.”
The senior officer also told us that gardaí are shocked by the amount of people using drugs and then driving. He said: “What we’re finding now is the amount of people that are getting detected for drug driving that you would not suspect had been drug takers. They are professional people, well regarded in society.
“The statistics show that there is an awful lot of society on drugs now
“By doing a mandatory intoxication checkpoint, we are actually detecting people that you would not suspect of being a drug taker.”
He revealed that people who use drugs like cocaine at the weekend are in for a shock if they think it has left their system by Monday – like booze.
He said: “Cocaine is such a potent drug and it is having a big effect and it stays in their system.
“We talk about the morning after, but if someone takes cocaine and in 10 days’ time we test them with that it will show up in their system.
“We had someone saying they
We talk about the morning after, but if someone takes cocaine and in 10 days’ time we test them it will show up
hadn’t taken cocaine and 14 days later they failed the test.
“We do talks here in Kilkenny to sporting clubs and schools just trying to educate people that if you are person that takes cocaine on a Friday night and you think everything is going to be grand when you go into work on a Monday – it’s not. You’ll be caught.”
Gardaí stopped 55 people in the hour that they mounted the snap Bank Holiday Monday checkpoint, which ran from 11am to midday. Of that number, all but one passed. A male driver was caught within
minutes of the checkpoint going live.
He was arrested and brought to Kilkenny Garda Station where he underwent a more accurate breath test on a machine called an intoxilyzer – which gives a precise reading of alcohol in the suspect’s system.
He also failed that test and is now set to be prosecuted.
Inspector Donohoe appealed to drivers to be aware they could still be over the limit the morning after the night before.
And he advised them to sleep off the booze until well into the afternoon.
He said: “We would always tell them to give it to the afternoon.
“Give themselves plenty of time, get something to eat, get some rest – you lose a lot of alcohol from your system through sleep.
“Some people think they can drink to 2am and get up at 9am and then go.
“Get adequate sleep and then get adequate food.
“If someone gets up and they have a splitting headache with a hangover and they feel bad then obviously their wits and their concentration levels have dropped.
“You’re not in a good place to drive.”
He also warned people that they know their own bodies better than anyone else – and know if they are fit to drive.
He said: “They should know themselves. “Anyone who takes a drink knows that if you are drinking heavily the night before, you know how you feel the next morning. “You will be a bit unsteady on your feet, you’ll have dizziness, nausea headaches – the last thing you should do is get into a car the next day.”