Drug tests will help eliminate dangerous drivers on the roads. This was stated by Ľubomír Okruhlica, the Ministry of Health’s chief expert on drug addiction medicine in connection with the approved amendment to the Act on Protection against the Abuse of Alcoholic Beverages. It will allow police officers to detect the presence of narcotic or psychotropic substances in the body of drivers with screening test kits.
Screening should work based on saliva testing. “It’s not invasive and it’s not complicated like it used to be,” Okruhlica zoomed in. He added that until now it was necessary to take a urine sample to detect the presence of drugs in the driver.
“If it was about other substances that also affect the ability to drive a motor vehicle negatively, from marijuana to methamphetamines to heroin, it’s good that there are currently resources for that,” said Okruhlica.
The expert pointed out that opioids can cause delayed reactions in drivers, as well as poor estimation of the situation, marijuana can even induce hallucinatory experiences. “If the dose was higher, he sees things that are not in the way, and he goes to avoid something and runs into a ditch,” stated. Cocaine and methamphetamines, on the contrary, according to him, increase aggressiveness behind the wheel.
The amendment, which will allow police officers to detect drugs with screening tests, was approved by the National Council of the Slovak Republic this week. As the submitter explained, in connection with the introduction of screening test kits to detect the presence of drugs into the service, it was found that the current wording of the law does not regulate their use by police officers in supervising the safety and flow of road traffic.
