New Drug Driving Law

A new offence has recently been created of driving, attempting to drive or being in charge of a motor vehicle on a road or other public place with amounts of any of 16 specified controlled drugs above certain limits in the driver's blood. The Drug Driving (Specified Limits) (England and Wales) Regulations 2014 ('the DDR'), which came into force on 2 March 2015, sit alongside pre-existing legislation which makes it an offence for a person to drive or attempt to drive a vehicle if they are unfit to drive through drugs. Convictions under the new offence will result in:

a mandatory driving ban of at least 1 year an unlimited fine a maximum of 6 months' imprisonment a criminal record evidence on the offender's driving licence that they have been convicted of drug driving, which will last for 11 years significantly increased car insurance costs potential difficulties in travelling abroad to countries such as the USA The pre-existing law has been criticised for leading to only a small number of prosecutions, because though success depends on proving that the impairment of the driver's ability was caused by the drugs in their system, no objective standards are laid down to help this be determined. Now, if drivers are found to have amounts of one of the drugs specified in the DDR in their blood above the specified limits, they can be convicted without any need to show that their ability to drive was adversely affected or that this was caused by drug use. Police who suspect road users of driving having taken the specified drugs in excess of the specified levels can:

make them do a field impairment assessment screen them for cannabis and cocaine with a roadside drug kit to assess whether their condition might be due to the presence of drugs follow up roadside tests with blood tests at a police station Drugs specified under the new law include illegal ones like cannabis and cocaine, but also some, such as Diazepam and Lorazepam, included in medicines which are either legally prescribed or available over the counter. The illegal drugs have very low specified limits, while those present in medicines have limits higher than those...