The National Post reports in its Wednesday, Aug. 21, edition that new criminal charges that allow police to charge drivers based on THC levels in the blood are off to a slow start in most parts of the country, provincial data shows.
The Post's Brian Platt writes that the RCMP's national forensic labs had also anticipated a large spike in impaired driving blood toxicology work after pot was legalized, but so far it has failed to materialize. The number of samples sent in has been a quarter of what was expected.
The new charges took effect more than a year ago and are expected to be heavily litigated due to the unsettled science around THC blood levels and impairment. However, there are no known court decisions on this yet, and the slow pace of charges means it may be a while until their constitutionality is settled.
Police do not need to rely on blood tests to lay a drug-impaired driving charge. They can instead have a drug recognition expert evaluate the driver, and use urine samples as supporting evidence.
However, the new charges, called blood drug concentration offences, make it much easier to prove the offence -- as long as police can get a blood sample within two hours of driving and have it analyzed.
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