Providing useful information and promoting safer driving How can the public be provided with the most useful evidence based information on drug driving (both illegal and pharmaceutical) to promote safer driving? Including: – Education requirements for drivers who use legal / illegal drugs (including with alcohol) – Education for health and other sectors – Media reporting – Others What are a few things that the ACT can do which could make a real difference?

Underlying assumptions of this discussion No-one wants impaired drivers on our roads. People who use alcohol and drugs can and want to take care of their own health and safety and contribute to the health and safety of the community. Drivers want accurate information about driving and drugs/alcohol. Drivers don’t want to get into a road crash. The purpose of drug driving legislation is to improve road safety (not about catching and punishing people who use drugs)

Roadside drug testing requires an extensive social marketing strategy The community at large: People who currently use the targeted controlled drugs: People who currently use medicines capable of causing impairment: Passengers and potential passengers in motor vehicles

What are some of the key factors of success of drink-driving counter measure social marketing campaigns? E.g. Long term messaging that has been built over time (e.g. decades) creating and sustaining deterrence Clear messages the community can understand (e.g. Plan B, drink or drive, Bloody Idiots) Enabling environments that support the messaging (e.g. implementing standard drink labelling) Harm minimisation approach (not zero tolerance) linked with relative crash risk science (e.g..05 limit) What are some others?

How does the drink-driving social marketing contrast with the drug driving social marketing? E.g. New messaging (e.g. first ACT campaign began in 2015) Information about penalties Zero tolerance What are some others?

Principles of deterrence “The Territory’s best chance of achieving lasting and measurable changes in driver behaviour in this area is to ensure that... public awareness initiatives for drug driving include strategies aimed specifically at reinforcing the general deterrence effect of random drug testing” (ACT Government, 2010) Visibility—Seeing police testing Enforcement—Testing by police, avoidance of testing (displayed at the end of RDT section) Credibility—Processing by police (whether a driver is penalised or ‘let off’) and perceived accuracy of testing devices Randomness—Extent to which testing by police is perceived as random Publicity—Media reporting Knowledge—Level of knowledge about penalties associated with being caught drug driving

Credibility and Publicity E.g. accuracy of testing devises, E.g. rates of positive tests SMH. Feb Roadside drug tests mysterious and uncertain SMH. Oct ,000 NSW residents to be targeted in ‘wasteful, unfair’ roadside drug testing ABC News. Feb Acquittal of man caught drug-driving nine days after smoking cannabis throws NSW drug laws into doubt SMH. June Hundreds of Victoria truck drivers caught using illicit drugs SMH. Nov Legal nightmare for man as drug driving test returns positive for drug he’s never used. SMH. March Legal problems could follow revelation of police drug testing process fault: QC SMH. Jan Questions raised over fairness of drug-driving charges as arrests double CT: Jul : Zero tolerance drug drive laws leads to conviction of unimpaired motorcyclist CT: June : ACT's zero-tolerance drug driving laws may need review CT: June : In December last year, one third of drivers who were randomly tested for drugs in Queanbeyan tested positive to either cannabis or methamphetamine. SMH: July : One in three tested Queanbeyan drivers and almost one in seven tested Goulburn drivers were caught driving under the influence of drugs in July ABC. 27 Jan % of north england north west drivers test positive

Discussion… What are a few things that the ACT can do which could make a real difference to public information about drug driving?