South Australia’s upper house has voted in favour of amendments to the Drink and Drug Driving Bill put forward by Dignity Party’s Kelly Vincent.
Despite long-held concerns that roadside drug testing only tests for the presence of cannabis and not impairment, the Police Minister labelled the plans as ‘crazy’, reports the ABC.
Vincent said that a doctor would be required to decide if a motorist’s driving was impaired by the prescribed medical treatment.
“It’s no longer illicit to use medical cannabis, it is legal and we need to move this conversation forward so that we understand that a positive test does not always equal impairment,” she said.
“It is getting to the point where more people are dying on our roads because of drug consumption than there are of drink drinking,” Police Minister Peter Malinauskas said, however the ABC did not reveal if he’d actually cited any real statistics.
States are yet to act on the revision of driving laws since the legalisation of medical cannabis.
The bill still needs to be considered by the Lower House.
