Drug impairment effects on driving explained by Saskatoon police, SGI

A drug expert with the Saskatoon police broke down how different drugs impair driving on Wednesday, alongside a representative from SGI.

Const. Patrick Foster told a media presentation that when people think of impaired driving, they usually think of alcohol or cannabis.

Saskatoon police say a drug is anything that enters the human body that can result in any kind of impairment.

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“It’s really important to understand the difference between impairment and intoxication,” Foster said. “What’s important to understand is what grounds officers need to meet certain demands on an individual driver.”

Foster said police need a reason to believe that an offence is occurring to order a drug test or field sobriety test for a suspicious driver, except in the case of alcohol.

Under law, police can breathalyze a driver without suspicion of intoxication, and it is mandatory for the driver to comply.

“Until they reach the point of outright intoxication, they may not even believe that they are impaired, and we get that quite often,” Foster said.

“We are not saying you can’t use any of these things,” said Tyler McMurchy with SGI. “Just, understand how it affects you and how it might affect your ability to drive.”

McMurchy said that alcohol and cannabis are the most common drugs that are found in impaired drivers, but many illegal substances will impair judgment as well.

Authorities classify drugs, including alcohol, into seven different categories: essential nervous system depressants, inhalants, dissociative anesthetics, cannabis, essential nervous system stimulants, hallucinogens, and narcotic analgesics.

Foster said sometimes people take multiple drugs at once from the same category or will mix drugs from different categories.

Nervous system stimulants speed up the body’s reactions and can include methamphetamine, cocaine, or some prescription drugs.

Symptoms can look like body tremors, anxiety and intense excitement, or as Foster added, restlessness, a runny nose, or being very talkative.

Foster said hallucinogens are very similar to nervous system stimulants but there is one key difference: “It’s what we call the magic unicorn. They might actually see a magic unicorn or a rainbow or something,”

Alcohol is considered a nervous system depressant.

Narcotic analgesics depress the muscle systems in the body, slowing speech and usually causing the user to nod off, even while sitting or standing.

Foster said this can be one of the scariest categories of drugs. “They are essentially derivatives of opium and replicate the reaction of painkillers.”

McMurchy said the province has seen a significant decrease in impaired driving in the last decade.

“Some people will respond to the idea that laws are stronger now and that you will face more significant penalties. Maybe they will respond to the threat of getting caught. … Maybe they will respond to a really heartfelt public awareness campaign.”

SGI asked the public to use the “RID” program to report impaired driving when they see it.

“It’s not snitching when you call 911 to report an impaired driver,” McMurchy said. “If you look at the statistics, I think it’s more than half of the impaired driving fatalities where somebody is killed, it is the impaired driver.”