The President’s Foundation for the Well-being of Society, which focuses on social research and community relations, has drawn public attention to the fact that when it comes to driving under the influence of drugs there is no law in Malta setting limits on drug consumption, as there is with alcohol.

This startling information arose when Anna Maria Vella, who chairs the National Centre for Freedom from Addictions within the President’s foundation, made an appeal, in the wake of a Bill now before Parliament calling for stricter alcohol limits, to highlight the need for tighter drug-driving laws.

She pointed out that, as the law now stands, drug offenders can act virtually with impunity because the police cannot carry out roadside tests for substance abuse. While they can conduct a breathalyser test if they observe somebody driving in an erratic fashion, the same cannot happen for illegal substances.

What makes her point more concerning is that her unit had submitted a set of recommendations in a research document on drug-driving legislation in Malta in May 2016. Although a copy of the document had been sent to all members of Cabinet no feedback or reaction had been received.

The Malta Traffic Regulations Ordinance lays down that impaired driving under the influence of drugs (defined as intoxicants other than alcohol) is a criminal offence but there are no established limits on the same lines as for alcohol.

There is also no distinction between drugs and prescribed medication or any reference under the law to narcotic or psychotropic substances covered by the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance.

It appears that, due to a loophole in the law, any person found driving under the influence of drugs is often only charged with “negligent driving”.

For the police to obtain any kind of intimate sample, such as urine, sweat or saliva to test for drugs, they require authorisation from the duty magistrate, a cumbersome process that is practically impossible to get on the spot.

The void in the law is evident from the statistics kept by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, which records data on traffic accidents involving people under the influence of drugs. No such data is submitted by Malta as it does not exist.

Given that Malta has had a serious drug abuse problem for decades, the lack of proper legislation to deal with drug-driving offences seems an extraordinary omission which successive governments have ducked. Most other advanced countries in Europe have comprehensive drugs and driving laws, laying down that it is illegal to drive if a person is unfit to do so because s/he is on legal or illegal drugs and has specified levels of illegal drugs in his/her blood (even if the driving was not affected).

Dr Vella has sensibly proposed that, to gauge the size of the problem, the police should start carrying out random and anonymous road tests for a six-month period to establish how widespread substance abuse among motorists is. There would be a concomitant need, of course, to establish laboratories to analyse samples because no such facilities exist.

Dr Vella has exposed a glaring gap in Malta’s rule of law that urgently needs to be rectified. It is time for Maltese law to reflect the 21st century.

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