Roadside drug testing: Incoherent policy or uncertainty by design?

Abstract

Roadside drug testing regimes being implemented around Australia have been presented as essential for road safety but are compromised by significant policy incoherence. Prosecution based upon driving impairment has been replaced with prosecution based upon mere detection of a specified substance. The conflation of road safety and prohibition as the jurisprudential rationale for penalty by legislators is producing significant negative side effects for the criminal justice system and for the social legitimacy of the roadside testing process generally. Genuine impairment testing for drivers is important but it is not being achieved by the current procedures in place around Australia.