Oral fluid testing for impaired driving enforcement

Author(s)
Flannigan, J.; Talpins, S.K.; Moore, C.
Year

Law enforcement, traffic safety professionals, criminal justice professionals, and social advocates have worked together to address alcohol-impaired driving, for decades, dramatically reducing its prevalence and saving tens of thousands of lives. Unfortunately, far less time and resources have been devoted to an equally significant and related problem: driving under the influence of drugs (DUID). In fact, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) did not test biological samples from drivers for drugs during the National Roadside Survey (NRS) until 2007 when data showed that 16.3 percent of weekend nighttime drivers tested positive for drugs; marijuana accounted for almost half of the positives. To put this in perspective, 12.4 percent of weekend nighttime drivers tested positive for alcohol, and less than 2.2 percent of weekend drivers tested above the legal limit (0.08) for alcohol. Further, the results showed a 97 percent agreement between blood and oral fluid when collected simultaneously and tested for drugs, indicating that oral fluid is a viable alternative to blood for the detection of drugs in drivers.

Pages
58-59, 61, 63
Published in
IACP Police Chief Magazine
2017 (January)
Library number
20220109 ST [electronic version only]

Our collection

This publication is one of our other publications, and part of our extensive collection of road safety literature, that also includes the SWOV publications.