If you live in the ACT, here’s news that you may have missed in amongst summer festivities, holidays (if you were lucky) and getting the kids back to school. Police in the ACT are now able to detect cocaine in roadside drug testing.
The change came into effect on 1 January 2025. Up until then, ACT Police could only test for cannabis, methamphetamines and MDMA or ecstasy during their roadside drug testing. With cocaine now added to the list, Police in the nation’s capital and surrounds will be able to detect four drug types.
Drivers caught operating a vehicle under the influence of cocaine (or any illicit drug) in the ACT may face fines of up to $4,000. They’ll also be hit with a default licence disqualification period of six months.
Testing catches first driver
It wasn’t long before the inclusion of cocaine was put to the test (pun intended!) in the ACT.
According to the Canberra Daily, a 19-year-old male driver was stopped by police at 8am on 1 January in Campbell, for random drug and alcohol testing. The driver allegedly tested positive to cocaine, a mere eight hours after the change came into effect.
Following the initial non-negative roadside drug testing result, the driver was taken to a police station where a secondary test also allegedly returned a positive result for cocaine. He is expected to face court at a later date.
Cocaine not widely detected in drug testing
While the move may seem commonsense, given that cocaine is reasonably widely used in Australia, the ACT wasn’t alone in not detecting the drug before the change.
In fact, NSW is the only state with a lengthy history of including cocaine in their roadside drug testing. It started detecting the drug in 2018. Queensland joined NSW in 2023 and South Australia is expected to start testing for cocaine early this year.
It may seem somewhat of a contradiction that roadside drug testing has been hardened in the ACT, while in some cases over the past few years some drug charges have been reduced. For example, penalties for possession of certain illicit drugs have changed and cannabis possession has been decriminalised.
However, it’s wise to remember that roadside drug testing is about safety. It remains an offence to have drugs present in your system while driving, regardless of whether the drug has been decimalised, because it places you, your passengers and other road users at risk.
For someone with cocaine in their system, for example, they can have feelings of overconfidence, aggression, reduced inhibition, increased risk-taking, agitation, loss of concentration, delusion and impaired vision. Certainly not attributes that you want in someone who is in control of a vehicle.
Cocaine has no place in the workplace
The roadside is not the only place where cocaine, other illegal drugs and even some prescription drugs, have a place. Which is why all of Integrity Sampling’s workplace drug testing programs can detect cocaine. Other drugs that our testing can detect include cannabis, opiates, MDMA and methamphetamines.
You don’t want to be driving with or near someone who is affected by drugs and you certainly don’t want to work with them either, which is why drug testing is so important. Always remember, testing is the only way to tell if someone is under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
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Police in the ACT are now able to detect cocaine in roadside drug testing, in a move that will boost roadside safety in our nation’s capital and surrounds.
