Drinking for sobriety
“Remember guys, the idea is to drink, so if I see you’re not drinking enough, we might bump your drinks up. Got it?”
Thus, with solemn nods and cheersing of red Solo cups, drinking in the name of education begins.
We’re here so police can practise Standardized Field Sobriety Tests (SFST) on subjects who have been drinking alcohol.
Sitting in a small, nondescript room at the RCMP training depot, the six of us cradle our booze, making the kind of small talk one does when thrown into a room with strangers for the sole purpose of drinking.
Const. Colin Stark, provincial SFST co-ordinator, asks about our drinking history so officers know how much liquor they can feed us to ensure we’re buzzed, but still able to complete sobriety testing.
As more drinks are served, our hands dive frequently into the bowls of chips on the table.
An RCMP officer hovers, making sure we’re keeping pace.
It may be a bit of a party atmosphere, but we’re here for a serious purpose — to help RCMP and city police officers from Regina and Saskatoon identify drunk drivers.
Drinking and driving is, after all, the leading cause of fatal crashes in Saskatchewan.
“If there’s any question in anybody’s mind about whether or not they should be driving, really, the question itself is their answer,” Stark tells me later.
“With the holiday season there’s always a big push to make sure nobody’s drinking and driving, but my one wish would be for everyone across Saskatchewan and Canada to have the same mindset for the other 11 months of the year.”
After lunch, we’re given more drinks before being taken down the hall for a breathalyzer test (I accidentally steal the mouthpiece — bad form, Emma), then Andrew, Kent, Carey and I are herded into separate rooms for the sobriety tests.
We find this out later, but at this point — after drinking 11 ounces of rye in a few hours — my blood alcohol count (BAC) is 0.135. The legal driving limit is 0.08.
A young RCMP officer is first to test me.
“Follow the stimulus without moving your head,” he directs, holding up a pink pen. “Do you understand?”
At first I think to tell him he should just call the “stimulus” a pen, but then I realize he is The Law and I should follow The Law’s directions, so I just nod and watch the pen as he moves it about. I also giggle.
“I’m checking for distinct and sustained nystagmus at maximum deviation,” he says to the instructor in the room, who’s marking the officer’s testing technique.
I don’t know what “sustained nystagmus at maximum deviation” means, but I do notice my eyes jerking away from the pen as I try to concentrate.
Const. Doug Boxall, a breath technician since 2006, later explains it’s these eye tests that give the drunken people away.
“One of the things they teach us on the course is that the truth is in the eyes,” he says. “If you’re under the influence of anything, you can’t cheat that test. We’ll know.”
Next I have to walk a line, heel-to-toe, then I’m asked to balance on one foot. Unsurprisingly, I don’t do particularly well at either.
Seven more officers come in to test me — I get slightly better at the balancing thing, but my eyes continue to give me away — before my fellow drinkers and I are paraded into the SFST classroom.
There we find out our BACs and how many ounces of liquor we consumed.
As police who tested me relay their conclusions, it’s quite clear I was drunk for every test — but apparently that was an excellent learning experience for those taking the SFST course.
I like to think my consumption of rye helped Canada this week.
You’re welcome, Canada.
“IF THERE’S ANY
QUESTION IN ANYBODY’S MIND ABOUT WHETHER
OR NOT THEY SHOULD BE DRIVING, REALLY, THE QUESTION ITSELF IS THEIR ANSWER.” CONST. COLIN STARK