People Against Drink/Drug Driving

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Queensland’s renowned roadside police drug testing unit has been unceremoniously shut down after 13 years, leaving 20 officers out of a job and awaiting reassignment.

The unit has been on the front line of Queensland‘s fight against drug driving, conducting up to 25 per cent of the state’s 75,000 random drug tests each, The Courier-Mail was told.

The officers were called into a meeting at Nundah Station on Monday with Assistant Commissioner Ben Marcus and told they were now surplus to requirements and would be reassigned when positions became available.

All officers were told to handover a list of three preferences for where they would like to be assigned to next, a source at the meeting said.

“They‘re miserable,” the source said.

Opposition police spokesman Dan Purdie said the move was a concern, given the spike in the road toll this year.
“Roadside drug testing is a vital tool in cracking down on drug affected drivers who shouldn’t be on the road,“ he said.

“I’m gobsmacked by this decision which once again highlights why Queenslanders deserve to see a full state budget before the state election.
“We need more police on the ground to prevent and detect crime and that’s what the LNP will deliver.”
“The capability and capacity to perform roadside drug testing around the state will not be impacted by these changes,” Commissioner Carroll said.

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DRIVING while hungover may be as dangerous as getting behind the wheel when drunk. 

But in a frightening twist, you’re not likely to care about your shoddy driving skills the day after a night on the grog. 

New Australian research into the cause and effects of hangovers also shows how sick you feel the day after drinking can be determined by your genes, with some people more genetically predisposed to bad hangovers than others. 

The studies at Swinburne’s Centre for Human Psychopharmacology — conducted in collaboration with international experts — promises to change the way we think about driving after drinking. 

“Research by some of my colleagues in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands ... found that driving impairment is equivalent when hungover to driving with a BAC above the legal driving limit,” Sarah Benson of Swinburne said. 

One of the criteria for someone being classified as “having a hangover” , was that they had a zero, or very close to zero, blood alcohol concentration , she said. 

“Otherwise we would be measuring the effects of residual alcohol and not of a hangover ,” she said. 

“When people are hungover , they are definitely blowing under the legal limit, but their driving is 

Road safety chief at the TAC, Samantha Cockfield, said impairment from alcohol could last for a long time after drinking had stopped. 

“If we don’t feel like we are OK to drive, the chances are we aren’t ,” she said. 

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by National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre

In the first Australian study of its kind, 559 cannabis-related deaths identified between 2000 and 2018 have been examined by researchers at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC), UNSW Sydney.

The leading cause of death was accidental injury (30 percent), followed by suicide (25 percent), and polysubstance toxicity (17 percent).

Lead author, Ms Emma Zahra said motor vehicle accidents were the leading cause of accidental injury deaths (75 percent).

"One in five motor vehicle accident deaths were pedestrians, highlighting that acute cannabis and polysubstance intoxication can affect information processing and perception of risk."

None of the deaths identified were due to cannabis toxicity alone.

The mean age of death was 35.8 years and more than 80 percent of cases were male. 62 percent were aged under 40 years with the highest proportion of cases in the 30-39 age bracket.

"Men were over-represented and were three times more likely to die due to accidental injury than women," said Ms Zahra

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