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Author Topic: A post but about roadside drug tests, drug driving, possible solutions etc  (Read 5636 times)

Offline skramamme (OP)

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Firstly, sorry for the slightly scattered nature of this post. I smoked ice yesterday (first time smoking! but I shot the rest haha) and I'm a little overtired, so will be having a nana nap very soon.

However, seeing that I did ingest one of the 3 drugs our police do roadside tests on, my worried brain googled "beating meth roadside swab tests" etc and came across this, after being told swishing vinegar works and dismissing it outright;
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1579288/

Quote
Oral fluid production is stimulated by use of agents such as citric acid candy, chewing gum or other agents. This will inevitably change the pH and concentration of drug in the oral fluid. This has been shown to lower concentrations of codeine by about two- to six-fold,12,13 two- to four-fold for methamphetamine,14 and about five-fold for cocaine.15 It is likely that similar changes will occur for other drugs.

So is it possible that a highly acidic fluid (say vinegar, a slice of lemon etc) could fuck with the accuracy of the test (using the notoriously unreliable Drug Swipe© tests that throw back a lot of false positives for meth)? But wouldn't taking something acidic like that flood your mouth with incriminating saliva, which is exactly what you don't want?

There was also mention of using the dry mouth treatment Biotene mouthwash because, as we all know, dry mouth is a pita (and also goes hand in hand with opiate and speed use) and taking a small swig could replace the minimal amounts of "tainted" saliva with artificial, "clean" saliva in the form of Biotene that you can then use on the swab... Because they will make you swab until there's enough saliva/liquid to register.

What do you guys think? FWIW I'm not about to test these theories out, I know there's no sure thing and I'm home all day today anyway.

But I'm being shouted meth again in a couple of days (oh the joys of hanging out with a mid-level dealer who likes to indulge and wants you to as well, for free) and there's probably going to be a time where I will be behind the wheel with some residual meth in my system.

So I figured I might as well ask what your experiences have been or if any of you chemistry geniuses can add their ideas as to the veracity of these ideas.

TBQH this is why I only drive with my pain killers, opiates etc in my system as they don't test for them (I think it's hilarious that they don't test fr opiates but I ain't complaining). Less stress.

Also, for those of you interested in how England came up with its unfortunate "drug driving" levels here's the link to the K Wolf report.
Even for a non sciency person such as myself I found a lot of it genuinely informative and reasonably accessible, even for someone like me who can't do fractions, let alone grasp a bunch of statistical tables ;


Of course, it looks like a lot of the panel's recommendations were ignored- ie; the suggested amphetamine cut off levels were 600μg/L and meth levels 200μg/L.

Instead the government is still going with that whole Zero Tolerance type bullshit and went with a threshold of 10μg/L for meth and a huge 2μg/L for THC... >:(
OTOH if you're on prescribed meds then there's waaaaay more leeway wrt the amount you can have in your system, because we all know benzos and morphine have zero sedating qualities and can't possibly be an issue. But that 2μg/L of THC is a fucking menace for sure ::)


So the situation in the UK is, in many ways, more draconian than before the limits were set, but at least they recognise that simply having trace amounts of illicit drugs in your body doesn't automatically render you unfit to drive for the next 3+ months (even if the limits that they went with are essentially zero).


Here's a great article breaking down the problems of these new laws (like how it targets the most vulnerable and sends conflicting messages about whether this is about punishing junkies or road safety, or a mish mash of both   /colour me shocked)
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2015/03/the-new-drug-driving-regulations-are-clearly-not-designed-to-improve-road-safety/

Quote
The limits set for the illegal drugs are, perhaps unsurprisingly, lower than those set for prescription drugs. I am not about to argue for leniency in cases of drug driving, but the disparity between the two classes of drug reveals a lot about police priorities, and raises an important question. Set at such absurdly low levels, are these new measures simply intended to catch out a certain kind of drug user under false pretences?
...

It is worth comparing heroin and its legal – and highly profitable – substitute Methadone. Heroin users will be caught out with only 5 micrograms per litre of blood, while methadone users are free to drive with up to 500 micrograms per litre. Regardless of our prejudices against heroin addicts, are we supposed to believe that there is a hundredfold difference in the effects of these two drugs? If not, then what is the purpose of the new regulation?


I was so hopeful when I heard about the report and so bummed at how it's been used to further punish both addicts and rdu's instead. It actually seemed as if there was a Western nation coming to its senses, but alas...

I really wish we could band together (just you and me chipper unless there's another aussie member now ;D ) and challenge the current Australian federal and state laws in court; to ask that there be a set of reasonable, scientifically sound limits placed on how much you can have in your system to warrant a punitive response (not that a punitive response is generally required anyway).
At least that way you can take something on Friday night and feel safe that you can drive to work come Monday without losing your licence (and probably your job) and having to go to court.
 
But there's rumblings going on.
Here's a quote from a recent article on the drum, part of out ABC network;
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-29/greg-barns-drug-driving-laws-are-unfair/7116994

Quote
We base our drink driving laws on this demonstrably correct data and accordingly allow for some alcohol in the bloodstream for full drivers licence holders, so long as it is below a blood alcohol content of 0.05 per cent.

But not so with other drugs such as cannabis. Here we take the prohibitionist stance and apply it to driving without bothering to undertake the rigorous analysis that accompanied and underpinned drink driving law development.
...

"One of the problems with 'zero tolerance' drug driving laws is that they punish some drivers who are not impaired as a way of deterring other drivers who might be impaired or might become impaired from driving. This is what we call 'vicarious punishment' and it offends basic notions of fairness."

I mean, just having a minute amount of a drug in your system should not be cause for instant punishment- I probably have 25μg/L from smoking yesterday at lunchtime, and if I were to drive tonight I could potentially lose my licence. It's all so frustrating!

Anyway, this pretty much sums it all up imho- I found this interview with a cop up in Queensland who is just stoked that they got their very own ~Draeger drug test 5000~ (seriously, that's its name  ::) )

“This is not about testing to see if the driver is impaired but testing to see if the driver has drugs in their system and if they do, they have committed an offence,” he said.

“We are 100 per cent focused on road safety.
...

“We hope the number of arrests is zero,” he said.

“We don’t want people to have illicit drugs in their system when they drive.”

http://www.centralwesterndaily.com.au/story/2982804/the-acid-test-new-equipment-allows-police-to-put-drug-drivers-on-notice/

I had to laugh- he literally goes from saying it's NOT about whether a driver is impaired but whether they're breaking the law to it's ~totally~ because we care about road safety.

Do they not see the huge disconnect there? But don't worry, they have the machine that goes "ping"!
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Offline Chip

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Re: A post but about roadside drug tests, drug driving, possible solutions etc
« Reply #1 on: February 29, 2016, 12:25:07 AM »
very interesting.

I'm stocking up on chewing gum.

these tests are mostly useless for meth unless the user is severely sleep deprived, imo.

thanks for those tips.
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