Dylan Thomsen: AA Road Safety spokesperson on whether roadside drug tests will pick up on ADHD medication

Legislation to allow roadside drug testing has recently passed its third and final reading in Parliament - but concerns have been raised.

Some fear that people using ADHD medication could be caught out by the new roadside drug tests carried out by police.

AA Road Safety spokesperson Dylan Thomsen says testing devices in Australia don't generally pick up on ADHD medication or medicinal cannabis - so it's possible people won't need to worry.

"The law is also going to have a medical defence... so if you have a prescription and you're using it as prescribed, you shouldn't be looking at any fines or demerit points even if you did return a positive test." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Ten after four no roadside drug testing it is coming.
The law has passed, but could it inadvertently catch innocent
people who are using the likes of ADHD medication or
using medicinal cannabis. The Transport Minister Chris Bishop says the
government's looking at a test that will only pick up
on the relevant illegal drugs, the prescription drug aspect of it.

(00:24):
People on ADHD or that do you wait that, do
you give that some credence.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Or not that the tests won't pick up for that stuff.
So it's testing for things like cocaine, ecstasy, marijuana. And
they've got some pretty sophisticated tests out there that other
jurisdictions use that we're hoping to use here where you
pick that stuff up and you know it would have
two tests at the roadside, and you know then if

(00:51):
there's two tests that you fail, then you will be
banned from driving for twelve hours.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Sounds like a lot of hope there. Dylan Thompson is
the AA's Road Safety spokespersonal WITHVENT this afternoon, High Dyllan.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Cure A good afternoon.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Is this.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Do these tests exist, like really good ones that differentiate
the legal from the illegal?

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yes, they do, so The first thing I'll say is
it's really hard to give definitive, absolute yes or no
to everything answers on this because there's so many different substances, medications, drugs.
But if we look at Australia, for example, the testing
devices that they use, they say in their official guidance

(01:37):
information that ADHD medication should not return a positive result.
And also the testing devices generally test for THHC and
a lot of the medicinal cannabis does not have THHC
in it. I mean, you have to forgive me a
little bit. I'm not a pharmacist, but so there are

(01:59):
testing devices that should not be returning positive results for
people on ADHD medication or medicinal cannabis. And the law
is also going to have a medical defense, so you
shouldn't if you have a prescription and are using it
as prescribed, you should not be looking at any fines
or demerit points even if you did return a positive test.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Okay, how quickly could all this happen? Do you think?
How quickly do you think they're be able to get
these tests up and running.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
Well, we're hoping from the AA's perspective that by the
end of the year, we might actually see police using this.
It'll depend a little bit on how quickly police because
police are only now beginning the process of looking at devices,
testing them and trialing them, and there's a lot of
different devices out there on the market to choose from.
But we're hoping by the end of the year we
might actually see this finally happening in New Zealand, because

(02:49):
you know, it's really important to remember we are averaging
currently about one hundred road deaths a year. We're testing
after the fact shows drugs in a driver's system that
police I think may have contributed to that crash.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Got to be done then, Dylan, thank you for that.
Dylan Thompson, a road safety spokesperson. For more from Heather
Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to News Talks a B
from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.