Due to the contemporary increase of illicit drugs consumption (and notably cannabis) in many European countries (Britain, France and Scandinavia, for example), an increasing number of studies are dealing with the prevalence of licit and illicit drugs in various countries and among various populations of drivers (road surveys, weekend drivers, suspected drivers, drivers involved in accidents). A European research structure (the Pompidou Group) has been initiated to compare the magnitude of the problem in each country. Since 1999, France has enacted the so-called ‘Gayssot Law’, stipulating that testing for illicit drugs should be mandatory in every fatal accident (for all persons involved in the accident). Traffic safety studies in this field may be categorised in two main and complementary approaches, experimentation and epidemiology; both have tried to apply the ‘alcohol model’ to illicit drugs and we will see that this is not necessarily entirely relevant. In fact, legal levels of Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) have been set after sound epidemiological works, the pharmacolokinetics of alcohol allowing this precision (the Breath Alcohol Concentration [BrAC]/[BAC] relationship remaining relatively constant), but the pharmacological characteristics of illicit drugs are different and generate several methodological problems. (Author/publisher) For the covering abstract see ITRD E116881.
Abstract