Earlier this year I attended a roadside checkpoint in Co Cork. It took place on a Wednesday morning and was led by local gardaí.
It included RSA enforcement officers plus officers from Customs/Revenue.
During the pre-briefing session the lead garda detailed the traffic offences to watch out for. Included were drug-drivers. For that purpose there were officers using the Drager Drugtest 5000 roadside device. This has allowed gardaí to establish roadside testing for drugs with similar powers to mandatory alcohol testing.
After the briefing, I said to the garda it was probably unlikely we would detect any drug-drivers on a weekday morning. Quite the opposite, he said, and he was fairly sure there would be a bigger chance of detecting a drug-driver than a drink-driver. I was sceptical.
As the checkpoint swung into action I watched as drivers were stopped and directed to the back of a Garda SUV, where the Drager 5000 lay ready for use. It was an education seeing the device in action. It tests for cannabis, cocaine, opiates and benzodiazepines.
Each driver was handed a cartridge with a swab attached and asked to move it around their mouth to collect saliva. It takes about a minute to collect the required amount.
Then the cartridge was placed into the Drager. It took about eight minutes to provide a result.
Up to about mid-morning four drivers had been tested - all negative.
However to my surprise, a fifth tested positive for cannabis. He was arrested and brought to the station where a blood specimen would be collected and sent to the Medical Bureau for Road Safety (MBRS) for analysis.
Source: Irish Independent, 16th October 2019
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