Mounties let ‘honest’ pot-smoking driver go

[Tmall]

http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/Front/1253013.html



A Yarmouth driver who smoked a joint while an RCMP officer chatted with drivers a few cars ahead of him at a roadside checkpoint last week fessed up when asked if he had smoked any dope recently.

Yup, he said. Like, 30 seconds ago.

But was the 20-something man’s seatbelt securely fastened? Absolutely.

Was he co-operative? Yes.

And was the odour of that freshly smoked joint still wafting through the air as the cops waved him up? Yeah, but he seemed fine, so after he put his small stash of dope into the outstretched hand of a Mountie, he was on his way.

But smoking a joint while waiting in line at an RCMP checkpoint may not be the smartest thing to do, said Cpl. Andy Hamilton of the RCMP’s western traffic services.

"I don’t know the exact distance, but it wasn’t very far (back in the line)," Hamilton said.

"I can’t get into this guy’s mind, but he felt comfortable enough to light a joint within eyesight of the police, probably figuring he’d finish it off before he gets there and no one will be the wiser."

When he got to the front of the line, the joint was gone but the Mounties noticed other evidence.

"He was honest," said Hamilton, who was not at the scene but read the report later.

The RCMP were checking cars and their drivers on Hardscratch Road, near the end of Highway 103, last Wednesday.

The mellow man was detained for a while but eventually released.

"This guy has not been charged yet," Hamilton said, but charges are still possible.

The Mounties assessed the man to determine if he was OK to drive. They often don’t lay a charge in cases involving only a gram or two of marijuana.

"The main reason we don’t is because whenever we present those cases to the Crown, they usually don’t go forward with them," Hamilton said.

No one from the federal prosecution service was available Monday to discuss drug charges.

The fact that the driver was smoking up at a checkpoint did not surprise Hamilton. Officers often smell weed after pulling over a car, and the driver will say he or she smoked a joint the night before.

"They’re very nonchalant about it," he said.

Drug-impaired drivers are often more commonly encountered than drunk drivers, Hamilton said.

"I would say there’s at least a 50-50 chance that if we pull over a person and they’re impaired . . . it’s by drugs and not alcohol."

So if a driver with one or two grams of dope is not likely to be charged, is the same likely to be true of a driver with one open bottle of beer?

"You have to go case by case," Hamilton said.

The recent spate of prom and graduation parties in Yarmouth and Shelburne counties saw cops dump out "a ton of liquor" at road stops. Mounties set up checkpoints when they knew most vehicles would be carrying booze. Most of the drivers were not impaired and were headed to a party rather than returning from one.

"So they seized the liquor and dumped it there on the spot," Hamilton said.

"Could they have laid charges? Absolutely."

Susan MacAskill of MADD Canada acknowledged there’s a lot of dope-smoking and driving going on.

"It mellows a person out so they don’t realize they’re a risk," she said. "They think they’re more relaxed, and we’ve had many people who claim ‘I’m a better driver when I’ve smoked a joint,’ and that’s just absolutely not true.

"People who are impaired by marijuana can cause a horrific crash."

She said the RCMP are very diligent in seeking out and apprehending impaired drivers.

"It is really quite bold to be smoking a drug that’s illegal . . . at a traffic stop," she said.

The level of alcohol in someone’s blood can be measured, but to determine drug impairment, specially trained police officers called drug recognition experts are often used, MacAskill said. And they must do roadside tests.

"If all officers don’t have that training, then they would be presuming someone is influenced by marijuana," she said.

A defence lawyer could argue that the police officer who laid the charge was not a trained drug recognition expert or that evidence was not provided to prove the accused had a specific drug in his or her system.

Evidence is obtainable through urine samples. But MacAskill conceded that collecting urine samples at the side of the road could prove more challenging than getting breath samples.

( bmedel@herald.ca)

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