Mark Mitchell: Police Minister comments on newly rolled-out roadside drug tests

The crackdown on drug drivers is due to start today.

Starting in Wellington first, saliva testing will be used to test the drivers for 4 drugs; cannabis, meth, MDMA and cocaine.

Police Minister Mark Mitchell told Heather du Plessis-Allan that the drug tests being used are new to police, and a trial period is necessary before a national rollout. 

"We will scale it up, but the police have to make sure. It's a new form of testing, so it's important to trial it."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The crackdown on drug drivers is going to start today.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
It kicks off from Wellington first, and this is the
cops Saliva testing the drivers for four drugs cannabis, meth,
MDMA and cocaine.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Police Minister Mark Mitchell is with us home match.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
Yeah, good one, you hear that?

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Mitch?

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Just can I just get your take on what's happened
in Australia. It sounds like it took the cops about
four minutes to get there, which I would have thought
is pretty fast.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Yeah, it sounds like the response was very quick from police.
But you know, just an absolutely awful situation to try
and get control of and deal with. When you've got
multiple gunmen and you've got or you got two gunmen
and you've got you know, large groups of the public around.
Is that you know, it would have been really confusing. Yeah,
certainly for those first responders. But look, just just want

(00:43):
to send our heartfelt pres and thoughts to everyone that
was impacted on by this. We're being really busy this
morning making sure that we put measures in place that
our own Jewish community here can feel safe, you know,
protection around our synagogues, And I just want to give
a shout out to our own faith leaders here in
New Zealand, and I've been working very closely with since
I became Ethic Communities Minister and of course Police Minister,

(01:05):
and the strength and the leadership that they've shown to
prevent that sort of violence from washing up on our
own shores, because you know, we've at the moment we've
seen so much global instability and violence and we've got
to do everything that we can to prevent that from
happening here in New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Very well said, now, look on the drug drug driver's testing.
I love this, but at fifty thousand of these tests,
you're not really going to make much of a difference.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
You're planning to scale it up.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
We will scale it up, but we just the police
have to make sure that it's a new form of testing,
so it's important to trial. It's been trolled in Wellington
to make sure that that it is actually working and
then of course it'll be rolled out nationally.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Brilliant. Really appreciate talking to you, Mark Mitchell, Police Minister.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
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