The attack on drugged driving by over-zealous law enforcement has been an issue in the past, particularly in Los Angeles, where a state grant was used in 2013 to supply DUI checkpoints with oral drug swab testing equipment. During the holiday season in 2013, police were supplied with Q-tips and a "black box" which, in theory, would detect the presence of drugs in saliva.
The problem with this technology is that measurable impairment concentrations of drugs can't be found, only the mere presence of a substance in saliva. Additionally, both the DRE (Drug Recognition Evaluation) program and per se levels were developed because law enforcement and prosecutors could not prove impairment by drugs in the same manner they could prove impairment from alcohol.
Then police created DRE and then per se levels for drugs so they could prosecute DUI-drug cases. Even Marcelline Burns, who helped develop the DRE program admitted in published papers that the alcohol model does not work for drugs. The truth of the matter is that positive blood, urine or breath tests prove nothing but prior exposure, and only when they have been confirmed by Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrum analysis.
Proving impairment from body fluid tests is impossible. There is just too much variability from person to person, and I am not aware of any controlled studies that can establish a range that fits everyone, any more than we can all wear the same pair of glasses.
Follow this link to the December 2013 NBC-LA news report.
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