The plans for Saturday night were set. The close-knit group of 19-year-olds were heading to Paceville to paint the town red. Four of them had wisely booked a taxi, but one of them was on his motorbike as he had to pick his girlfriend up from the airport.

He tried to be extra careful so at midnight he said his goodbyes and headed to the airport. He never made it.

This tragedy, in different versions and forms, will resonate with many. But we will never really know what caused this accident — was it one drink too many? Was it illicit drugs? Or was it simply exhaustion? Samples to measure the victim’s levels of alcohol or illicit drugs in the blood are only taken at hospital if an autopsy is carried out, and then only released on court orders.

According to the latest figures by the National Statistics Office for the third quarter of this year, the highest traffic casualty rate occurs on Saturdays, accounting for 17.2 per cent of total casualties. But there is nothing to indicate what caused these accidents and we will never understand the full extent of the problem unless proper research and tests are carried out.

What figures we do have, however, start to paint a picture. Almost 300 patients, most of them men, were treated at Mater Dei Hospital in the first nine months of this year after consuming excessive amounts of alcohol. And this is just the proverbial tip of a slippery slope that permeates the core of our culture — a Mediterranean laissez-faire attitude, both towards regulations and enforcement.

With Christmas festivities nearing, anti-drink-driving campaigns will resurface, but year, in year out the message is failing to drive people into changing their behaviour.

The majority still believe it’s okay to drive after a couple of glasses of wine, or after popping an ecstasy pill under the false belief that this stimulant will improve their driving. We have to aim for zero tolerance.

Last August, Sweden’s youngest Cabinet minister, Aida Hadzialic, 29, resigned after she was stopped at random by police and tests showed she had an alcohol level of 0.2 grammes per litre of blood - just the level considered an offence in Sweden.

The Adult Education Minister had drunk two glasses of wine during a concert and thought the alcohol would have left her system by the time she drove back home. Stepping down, she said: “I choose to quit because I believe what I have done is that serious.”

This is the level of soberness our society has to reach.

So while we welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement to step up measures on drink-driving we urge him not to stop there, but to follow what is happening in Europe and also legislate on drug-driving.

Any distinction between whether the driver was high on drugs or drunk is extremely unhelpful — they both impair a person’s ability to drive, and both are psychoactive substances that result in physiological, cognitive and emotional changes.

One issue that is of grave concern is the lack of awareness among the public on the potential impact of drug-taking on driving

Drug-driving is a topic that we, at the National Centre for Freedom from Addictions, a branch of the President’s Foundation for the Well-being of Society, feel deserves particular attention given the risks it poses to both the drug-user, as well as society as a whole.

The relevance of drug-use in the context of driving has also been highlighted at EU-level with drug-driving, which together with drunk-driving, is considered to be one of the three main ‘killers’ in terms of road fatalities — 28,000 die annually in the EU.

So to provide a timely response to the new Maltese legislation on drugs, the centre embarked on a research project to gain a better understanding of the status of drug-driving policies across the EU, with particular reference to Belgium, Norway, the UK and France.

A comparison was then drawn between approaches to counter drug-driving in these countries and the situation on a national level with a set of 10 recommendations developed for consideration by Maltese authorities and stakeholders. These are:

Malta should implement research studies to understand the prevalence of drug-driving in the local population and its influence on road accidents;

Data relevant to drug- (and drunk-) driving should be housed in a dedicated central repository;

Malta should adopt a two-tier system where per se, limits for a defined list of ‘problem’ drugs are available but prosecution on the basis of impairment remains possible;

Road safety objectives should not be confused with the general policy concerning drug-use, however, consideration should be given to how other legislation may influence the implementation of per se drug-driving legislation;

The implementation of any new laws needs to be evaluated and legislation must be amended/improved when problems are encountered;

Malta should consider the introduction of road-side drug screening using hand-held devices and update drug-testing procedures in the relevant laws and regulations;

Training of all players involved in the detection procedure should be mandatory;

Malta should explore opportunities to exchange information and learn from the early experiences of new legislative and enforcement measures being implemented in other member states;

Malta should explore the best sanctioning options available to deter drug-driving on a local level by involving all stakeholders;

Malta should consider the implementation of better procedures targeted at problem drug users and drivers using substitution treatment.

One issue that is of grave concern is the lack of awareness among the public on the potential impact of drug-taking on driving, and the potential multiplicative effect of mixing different drugs or drugs and alcohol.

We have to ensure we adopt the right educational and regulatory approaches to change the present culture. There is no room for complacency.

Anna Maria Vella is the chairperson of the National Centre for Freedom from Addictions.