Steve Watt: Police Association President on the roadside drug testing roll out begins

Today marks the beginning of road side drug testing - starting exclusively in the Wellington District.

The scheme's pilot will see police conducting random roadside saliva tests - screening for cannabis, methamphetamine, MDMA, and cocaine.

The initiative begins in the capital before scaling up from April until coverage is nationwide by mid next-year.

Any drivers whose tests come back positive, will need to do a lab test which also checks for 25 other substances.

Positive tests can result in 12 hour disqualifications from driving and possible infringement notices.

Police Association President Steve Watt shares his thoughts. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Back home and roadside drug testing starts from today. The
pilot program kicks off in Wellington with the aim of
it going countrywide mid next year, so officers can do
random roadside SALIVI tests. They're screening for cannabis, meth MDMA
and cocaine MDMA by the way, ecstasy known as by
some people. Steve what is the Police Association president and

(00:23):
he joins you now come on in to you, Steve.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
What are you ready to go? Ready to go?

Speaker 1 (00:30):
How does it work?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Look? Quite simply, it's a four stage process. The first
step in the process is taking a swarm from the
top of the tongue that either gives you a positive
result or a negative result from there. If it's a
positive result, you move on to stage two, where again
another strip's placed underneath your tongue. It is a sample strip,
so that sample strip is held and then you complete

(00:54):
a third test again that swave of the tongue and
a FED is positive. The sample test gets sent to
WAG for analysis that ESR and it has to be
matched against a prescribed limit for the drug, and if
you're above that prescribed limit, you'll be issued with an
infringement notice.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
So it's a much longer process than with drink testing
drink drive testing, which we're at home with it, and
we understand as well. Will it be as effective and
will there be false positives and all those sort of
concerns that people have had beforehand, It.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Will be an effective measure. What we've got to bear
in mind is that thirty three percent of all fer
atal crasis between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty three involved drugs,
So this is a welcome measure. It's not going to
be as long or prescribed as perhaps you know, a
four step process. As I outline, those steps are quite

(01:46):
quick to work through, but it certainly will take a
little bit longer than the alcohol testing currently does.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Okay, will this mean more work for officers?

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Look at it as an extra step that is more
work for officers. But what we've got to remember is
that we want to get everyone home safe. So every
officer out there is all about safety within the community,
and this is another tool in which to utilize in
order to get those people home safe on the road.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
And speaking of which, when it came to the testing
and getting people home safe, there was some debate about
whether impairment is being effectively measured. In other words, some people,
some people are impaired, even though they might not actually
trigger over the test. It hasn't been progressed on knowing
whether the test will show impairment.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Look, the test in itself will not show impairment. But
what police have in their toolcit is c testing. That
is another test outside of the oral fluid testing, which
people will have to go through a number of steps,
and does show impairment for drugs. So it's really important
to sort of distinguish between the two and that that

(02:58):
is a process in order to an appairment when it
comes to drugs.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
And should people who are on heavy prescriptions be concerned.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
No, I don't think so. In reality, there are methods
in there that if you are on prescribe drugs and
you do go over that prescribe limit, once your test
has been sent away and analyzed, there is a step
to tree defense for those that are on medical drugs
to rite away to police and explain that all.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Right, very good stuff, Steve. What a lot of work
has been done beforehand, It'll be a lot of work
going forward.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
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