From: bverreau@mipos2.intel.com (stargazer)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs,alt.drugs
Subject: Problems with Impairment Testing
Summary: the crime of being subnormal
Date: 13 Apr 92 19:30:31 GMT
Reply-To: bverreau@mipos2.intel.com (stargazer)
Organization: Nonusers for Legalization

Let me begin by saying that I favor the use of impairment testing
in place of blood/urine/hair/whatever sampling for determining an
individual's ability to perform in some capacity, such as driving
a car.  I don't think testing is the only issue that needs to be
addressed, though.  A thornier problem is how to deal with someone
who fails an impairment test.

There seems to be a lot of sentiment here on the net and elsewhere
that DUI is thoroughly reprehensible conduct, and anyone who is
found guilty of such an offense should be punished most severely.
Proposed sanctions include everything from revocation of driver's
license to serving jail time.  This hardening of attitude toward
drinking and driving may be partly an outgrowth of the MADD [Mothers
Against Drunk Driving] activism of recent years.  That organization's
philosophy is "Let's make the punishment so severe that we [society]
end drunk driving once and for all and prevent needless deaths on
the highway [such as happened to my child/relative/acquaintance]."

The trouble is, increasing the severity of punishment doesn't always
serve as a deterrent to crime.  Most people avoid driving while under
the influence simply for safety's sake.  A few people may be "scared
straight" by tough laws, but others apparently believe they won't get
caught, or they don't plan that far ahead.  Still others occasionally
find themselves behind a wheel feeling only slightly impaired without
realizing the actual extent of the problem and of the risked legal
consequences.  A policy of increasingly harsh sentences may yield
diminishing returns.

Now with the prospect of impairment testing - and I'll stick with
the DUI example, although it applies elsewhere - the police may have
to start arresting people for a variety of "impairment" crimes.  If
a nervous motorist can't score high enough on some reaction time and
coordination tester, he is subject to all these draconian measures
we've enacted to curb drunk driving.  Conversely, a skilled test taker
may be able to meet the standards even with a .2 BAC.  In any case,
it's going to be tough to devise a test that correlates so well with
driving ability that it separates the guilty from the innocent.

Then who are the "guilty"?  We have traditionally said that anyone
who drinks in excess of legal limits and operates a motor vehicle
has broken the law.  There are fairly objective means of obtaining
evidence in such a case, and the accused cannot claim ignorance of
having consumed alcohol.  What of an individual who fails a driving
impairment test due to simple fatigue, however?  True, he shouldn't
have been on the road and may be just as dangerous as an inebriated
driver, but is the culpability the same?  This person may have
started out in fine shape and simply continued for longer than was
prudent or may have become mesmerized by the monotony of the drive.
California highway engineers acknowledge this commonplace occurrence
by putting speed bumps ["silent policemen"] on the lane dividers to
wake people up if they start drifting across the road.  Should there
be different classes of impairment reflecting differing degrees of
complicity?  The whole process sounds pretty subjective, and with the
stakes being so high, it may result in a tangle of legal actions.

This brings us back to the problem of how do we achieve the stated
objective of making the highways safer by reducing the number of
impaired drivers?  Impairment testing makes it easier to identify
such people, regardless of how they got that way, but it raises
some new issues.  Should the law be concerned with the cause as
well as the fact of impairment?  Should differential punishment be
meted out according to the cause?  Should penalties actually be
reduced in recognition of the more general enforcement?  Not easy
questions to answer, but we should consider them before giving
impairment testing our unqualified endorsement.

` Bernie Verreau   "But officer, I can never beat those Nintendo games."       '
'                                                                              `
` uucp: ..{hplabs|amdcad|qantel|pur-ee|scgvaxd|oliveb}!hermes!mipos2!bverreau  '
' csnet/arpanet: bverreau@mipos2.intel.com                                     `
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs