Police In Canada Are Not Prepared To Catch People Driving High
This is the beginning of a new era. History has been made. Canada is one of two nations in the world to legalize Marijuana for the whole country!
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As of October 17th, 2018 Marijuana will be officially legal across Canada.
The implications of legalization will surely unfold over the years. However, certain Canadian provinces have been raising one pressing issue: the federal government has rushed ahead in legalization and the police just aren't prepared.
In other words, appropriate safety measures are not yet in place that guarantee road and public safety across the country.
That said, marijuana-impaired driving is definitely going to be 100% illegal, as we outline in the story here, however, just because it's illegal that doesn't fully protect against it actually happening.
As a result, officers need to be fully trained to not only spot marijuana-impaired driving - but also, similar to a breathalyzer test for alcohol, to test and confirm it on the spot.
This is a two-fold problem. Officers are not trained, and tests are not approved for use yet.
So - how far behind are we? Unfortunately, pretty far.
Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police would ideally like to have 2,000 officers trained by end of October and at the moment only 733 have been trained. That's less than half, and October is just 2-months away.
And a salvia-best test is waiting to be approved for use across Canada as well.
It's concerning because The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction confirms that more drivers killed in accidents tested positive for drugs than alcohol.
There will definitely be more developments on this story to come. Stay tuned.
