Objective: Triggered by the new federal commitment announced by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONCDP) to encourage states to enact drugged driving per se laws, this article reviews the reasons to establish such laws and the issues that may arise when trying to enforce them.
Methods: A review of the state of drunk driving per se laws and their implications for drugged driving is presented, with a review of impaired driving enforcement procedures and drug testing technology.
Results: Currently, enforcement of drugged driving laws is an adjunct to the enforcement of laws regarding alcohol impairment. Drivers are apprehended when showing signs of alcohol intoxication and only in the relatively few cases where the blood alcohol concentration of the arrested driver does not account for the observed behavior is the possibility of drug impairment pursued. In most states, the term impaired driving covers both alcohol and drug impairment; thus, driver conviction records may not distinguish between the two different sources of impairment. As a result, enforcement statistics do not reflect the prevalence of drugged driving.
Conclusions: Based on the analysis presented, this article recommends a number of steps that can be taken to evaluate current drugged driving enforcement procedures and to move toward the enactment of drug per se laws.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15389588.2011.632658 | DOI Listing |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
Application of LC-MS/MS for the Identification of Drugs of Abuse in Driver's License Regranting Procedures.
Pharmaceuticals (Basel)
December 2024
Laboratory of Forensic Toxicology, Section of Legal Medicine, Social Security and Forensic Toxicology, Department of Biomedicine and Prevention, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Via Montpellier 1, 00133 Rome, Italy.
Drugged driving is associated with an increased risk of road accidents worldwide. In Italy, driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol and drugs is a reason for driving disqualification or revocation of the driving license. Drivers charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs must attend a Local Medical Commission (LMC) to undergo mandatory examinations to regain the suspended license.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFResidual next-day effects of alprazolam on psychomotor performance and simulated driving in healthy normal adults.
Exp Clin Psychopharmacol
November 2024
Center on Drug and Alcohol Research, University of Kentucky.
The prevalence of drugged driving has increased in the United States. Some drugged driving may be unintentional as prescription medications used as sleeping aids, like zolpidem, cause impairment after the predicted duration of therapeutic action has elapsed. The aim of this study was to determine if nighttime administration of alprazolam, a drug commonly prescribed off-label as a sleeping aid, impacts driving performance the following day.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInflammasome components as new therapeutic targets in inflammatory disease.
Nat Rev Immunol
January 2025
Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia.
Inflammation drives pathology in many human diseases for which there are no disease-modifying drugs. Inflammasomes are signalling platforms that can induce pathological inflammation and tissue damage, having potential as an exciting new class of drug targets. Small-molecule inhibitors of the NLRP3 inflammasome that are now in clinical trials have demonstrated proof of concept that inflammasomes are druggable, and so drug development programmes are now focusing on other key inflammasome molecules.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDesign, development, and evaluation of a multi-lingual web-based database for informing people regarding driving-impairing medicines.
Traffic Inj Prev
August 2024
Road Traffic Injury Research Centre, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
Objective: Driving under the influence of drugs (DUID) is a growing traffic safety problem in many countries. It is estimated that 5 to 10% of medicinal drugs may impair driving due to their side effects. Despite the high number of medicinal drugs prescribed in Iran, there is a lack of a database that could provide specialized information regarding medicinal drugs and driving.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRapid nanomolar detection of cocaine in biofluids by electrochemical aptamer-based sensor with low-temperature effect for drugged driving screening.
Mikrochim Acta
August 2024
Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Analytical Science of Food Safety and Biology, College of Chemistry, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, 350116, China.
Cocaine is one of the most abused illicit drugs, and its abuse damages the central nervous system and can even lead directly to death. Therefore, the development of simple, rapid and highly sensitive detection methods is crucial for the prevention and control of drug abuse, traffic accidents and crime. In this work, an electrochemical aptamer-based (EAB) sensor based on the low-temperature enhancement effect was developed for the direct determination of cocaine in bio-samples.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWant AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!