Dräger DrugTest® 5000

There has been a palpable desire in certain communities to learn which portable drug screener would be approved for use in Canada. There is also a sizeable group who have been waiting to hear my opinion on the ultimate choice. So here we are.

The Federal Government has now approved the Dräger DrugTest® 5000 for use by Canadian police to conduct roadside screening in Criminal Code investigations. Although the choice of this particular device was not predicted, it was not unexpected. Allow me to explain.

When the Government made clear that there would be new legislation to address the perceived threat of drug impaired drivers that may result from cannabis legalization, they indicated that to protect the public drug roadside screeners would be approved. There wasn’t much discussion about whether acceptable technology existed for this purpose. The Government was vague, deliberately in my opinion, about how this would play out. They created a test program which they promoted heavily, claiming that they were testing various devices and that they would choose one that was suitable for use.

We quickly learned through our police contacts that there was little substantive testing being carried out, that this was mostly a public relations event designed to distract from deficiencies in the legislation as the law was debated in the House of Commons and Senate. So we weren’t surprised to learn that no clear evidence came from this pilot program. We did learn something about device fallibility, i.e. that there was a substantial risk of false positives, that the tested devices could only be used in an ideal temperature range that didn’t really seem useful in Canada.

Imagine waiting for the results to come back and it says you’ve got cocaine in your body.

What bothered us was that the Government suggested there was a magic bullet, a device that would fulfill the needs of Canadian law. Again, that was a deception.

In the end we’ve learned that the device that was approved wasn’t one of the ones the Government announced as having been part of the test program. It is a device already in use in the US, Australia and parts of Europe. In that sense it’s the very safe option. But is it right for Canada?

A little about Dräger

What you should know about Dräger (pronounced Draeger) is that they were always the expected choice for many of us who were paying attention because of the reputation of the manufacturer. Simply put, Dräger has the longest history of producing gas and chemical analysis technology. The company was founded in 1889 in Germany. Early on they pioneered many methods of identifying the presence of dangerous gasses in mines, gas used in combat situations, medical and other industrial applications. If you get the opportunity to go in a WWII German submarine you’re likely to see antique Dräger breathing equipment and gas testers.

Dräger and their German competitors were the first to develop fuel cell and infrared technology in breath-alcohol testing. The advantages over the old-school chemical analysis that we used here in Canada for decades is remarkable. So Dräger was a likely choice. But will the Drugtest 5000 work for Canadian police?

Roadside searches for bodily substances

We have certain requirements under Canadian law when it comes to this type of testing. You need to start with the foundational premise that this is a warrantless search. That means just what I said: they’re conducting a search for substances in the body and the police are doing it without a warrant. Warrantless searches are presumptively unreasonable and the prosecution must demonstrate that the search, despite being warrantless, is authorized by law. The authorization arises in that the search is pursuant to the provisions of the Criminal Code, lawfully applied, and it is conducted in a manner that is reasonable. A search must be conducted such that it either does not violate Charter protected rights, or if it does so, it is minimally intrusive, conducted reasonably on the basis of a lawful provision of the Criminal Code with which the police have complied.

Got it? Good.

Now keeping that in mind, imagine being detained for up to 45 minutes to conduct a test roadside on the basis on a police officer’s hunch. Imagine rubbing a cotton swab that looks a lot like a tampon in your mouth for 4 minutes. Imagine waiting for the results to come back after the officer inserts the sample into the device and, after 10 minutes of waiting, it comes back and says you’ve got cocaine in your body. And keep in mind that you may have never used cocaine.

 

And here is the problem with the Dräger DrugTest® 5000 – it has a false positive rate in the 12-15% range. This means that better than one in ten Canadians will find themselves in the circumstances I just outlined for you. It may be your partner, your child, your parent or even yourself facing a criminal investigation for driving while impaired by drugs. That, my dear readers, is the stuff of nightmares.

Kyla and I have been doing our best to get the word out to the media regarding the implementation of the device, and our hope is to instill some critical thinking and particular concerns into the minds of police officers who will be testing people in such a manner as soon as this coming Halloween. The stigma of the allegation of driving while on drugs is something we should fear in our society. People need to know that. We all need to recognize that. And my concern is that we won’t get to that point until the child of some high-powered person is wrongly accused of being on drugs as a result of roadside test on the Dräger DrugTest® 5000.

We’ll stay on message. In the meantime, drink responsibly, take care of your friends and family and prepare yourself because roadside drug testing poses a threat to each and every driver in this country.