Lawyer foresees long list of problems with roadside pot test
Vancouver lawyer Paul Doroshenko has added to his extensive collection of alcohol-detection devices by acquiring a Drager DrugTest 5000, as the federal government gives the go-ahead for the pot-testing device.
Doroshenko’s firm, Acumen Law Corp., has had the operating manual for the German device for a year and acquired a model six weeks ago to test its reliability.
Doroshenko has since determined the device’s procedure, unlike roadside alcohol breathalyzers, is lengthy and intrusive.
“It took me four minutes to collect enough saliva,” he said, describing the swab supplied as being tampon-like. “Then the test itself takes 10 or 12 minutes.”
Further delays would occur if the expensive device — Doroshenko paid $8,000 for his, plus mouthpieces, and estimated the RCMP will pay at least $12,000 per device — had to be delivered to the site of a roadside stop.
Now you would be looking at a warrantless detention of 45 minutes or more, he said.
“This is not minimally intrusive and it is not quick, it’s a long and arbitrary detention on the basis of a suspicion.”
Acumen Law has retained a cannabis company in Alberta to continue testing the device on marijuana users to determine what can and can’t be detected. The firm has often challenged police testing devices. It owns a collection of breathalyzers and has tested their calibrations and reliability over the years, going back to the BAC Datamaster C.
“I figured out a problem valve in it could increase the reading by mistake,” Doroshenko said. “And the valve would jam, an officer could assume that’s a refusal (when no reading was recorded).
“That was the death knell of that machine.”
When roadside breathalyzer devices were introduced in 2010, Doroshenko’s office collected invoices and repair records and concluded the devices were defective.
“I think thousands of people were wrongfully convicted,” he said.
Those devices were replaced in 2015.
“And now we’ve got this thing (Drager DrugTest 5000),” Doroshenko said. “We have significant concerns.”
Those concerns, Doroshenko said, include the fact we don’t know which foods would trigger a THC alert, fentanyl isn’t one of the compounds identified by the device (it looks for cannabis and cocaine), and saliva collected could be stored indefinitely.
“And now the police have your DNA,” Doroshenko said, calling it a glaring constitutional violation.
“How many (roadside stops) will be a ruse to get DNA and avoid a warrant? We’ll see.”