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Speaker 1: Ten after four no roadside drug testing it is coming.

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Speaker 1: The law has passed, but could it inadvertently catch innocent

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Speaker 1: people who are using the likes of ADHD medication or

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Speaker 1: using medicinal cannabis. The Transport Minister Chris Bishop says the

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Speaker 1: government's looking at a test that will only pick up

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Speaker 1: on the relevant illegal drugs, the prescription drug aspect of it.

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Speaker 1: People on ADHD or that do you wait that, do

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Speaker 1: you give that some credence.

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Speaker 2: Or not that the tests won't pick up for that stuff.

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Speaker 2: So it's testing for things like cocaine, ecstasy, marijuana. And

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Speaker 2: they've got some pretty sophisticated tests out there that other

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Speaker 2: jurisdictions use that we're hoping to use here where you

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Speaker 2: pick that stuff up and you know it would have

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Speaker 2: two tests at the roadside, and you know then if

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Speaker 2: there's two tests that you fail, then you will be

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Speaker 2: banned from driving for twelve hours.

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Speaker 1: Sounds like a lot of hope there. Dylan Thompson is

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Speaker 1: the AA's Road Safety spokespersonal WITHVENT this afternoon, High Dyllan.

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Speaker 3: Cure A good afternoon.

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Speaker 2: Is this.

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Speaker 1: Do these tests exist, like really good ones that differentiate

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Speaker 1: the legal from the illegal?

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Speaker 3: Yes, they do, so The first thing I'll say is

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Speaker 3: it's really hard to give definitive, absolute yes or no

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Speaker 3: to everything answers on this because there's so many different substances, medications, drugs.

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Speaker 3: But if we look at Australia, for example, the testing

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Speaker 3: devices that they use, they say in their official guidance

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Speaker 3: information that ADHD medication should not return a positive result.

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Speaker 3: And also the testing devices generally test for THHC and

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Speaker 3: a lot of the medicinal cannabis does not have THHC

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Speaker 3: in it. I mean, you have to forgive me a

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Speaker 3: little bit. I'm not a pharmacist, but so there are

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Speaker 3: testing devices that should not be returning positive results for

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Speaker 3: people on ADHD medication or medicinal cannabis. And the law

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Speaker 3: is also going to have a medical defense, so you

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Speaker 3: shouldn't if you have a prescription and are using it

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Speaker 3: as prescribed, you should not be looking at any fines

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Speaker 3: or demerit points even if you did return a positive test.

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Speaker 1: Okay, how quickly could all this happen? Do you think?

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Speaker 1: How quickly do you think they're be able to get

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Speaker 1: these tests up and running.

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Speaker 3: Well, we're hoping from the AA's perspective that by the

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Speaker 3: end of the year, we might actually see police using this.

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Speaker 3: It'll depend a little bit on how quickly police because

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Speaker 3: police are only now beginning the process of looking at devices,

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Speaker 3: testing them and trialing them, and there's a lot of

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Speaker 3: different devices out there on the market to choose from.

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Speaker 3: But we're hoping by the end of the year we

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Speaker 3: might actually see this finally happening in New Zealand, because

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Speaker 3: you know, it's really important to remember we are averaging

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Speaker 3: currently about one hundred road deaths a year. We're testing

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Speaker 3: after the fact shows drugs in a driver's system that

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Speaker 3: police I think may have contributed to that crash.

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Speaker 1: Got to be done then, Dylan, thank you for that.

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Speaker 1: Dylan Thompson, a road safety spokesperson. For more from Heather

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Speaker 1: Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to News Talks a B

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Speaker 1: from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.