Driving Under The Influence Of Drugs & The Dre

Both police and prosecutors are cracking down on drivers who are suspected to be under the influence of drugs. Increased government funding and training has been dedicated to detecting driving under the influence of drugs (DUID).

The duty of detecting someone under the influence of drugs is difficult for police officers. A driver’s medical or mental health conditions will typically mislead an officer to arrest a driver for being under the influence of drugs. Most police officers have no medical training and no knowledge of the driver’s medical history. Without this training and information, an officer will often jump to the conclusion that an illicit substance must be affecting the driver.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have designed a program for training police officers to detect drug use by drivers. This course is called the Drug Evaluation and Classification Program (DEC). The course trains an officer to administer a 12-step procedure called a “drug recognition evaluation.” While the DEC course attempts to train an officer to detect drug use, most pharmacologists and medical experts agree that this program does not adequately train an officer to determine drug intoxication.

Through blood testing, the presence and amount of a drug in a driver’s system can be more reliably detected. However, expert witnesses often disagree about what quantity of a drug in the blood actually leads to driving under the influence (DUI).

As one can see, driving under the influence of a drug cases can be complicated in nature. In order to best defend a client against these charges, a DUI attorney must thoroughly examine police and laboratory records, as well as employing expert witnesses.