We here weren't overly surprised to hear that gardaí have their serge slacks in a twist about the number of drug drivers on Irish roads, writes Kilian Doyle
Some two-thirds of drivers busted for driving erratically - whatever that means - are stoned out of their gourds, according to new research by the Medical Bureau of Road Safety. Oh dear. Fancy that.
Why anyone is surprised is beyond me. Ireland regularly tops the league of drug use in Europe. We are a nation in love with being off our faces. It's a small leap to assume we are equally fond of driving while wasted.
But some people might say (says he, going into agent provocateur mode) that smoking dope will actually improve many drivers' performance as it tends to make you less aggressive and more chilled. Mix a jumped-up adrenalised boy racer with a big fat spliff and you get a boy cruiser who's more interested in scoffing his bag of cheesy crisps at 15 km/h than undertaking you on the hard shoulder.
Others, mainly anyone with more than half a brain, would disagree.
There's a classic bumper sticker, almost de rigueur among drivers of a certain persuasion, that reads: "Why drink and drive? Smoke hash and fly."
It goes without saying that people who have these on their cars are, without exception, cretins. It's just asking to be stopped and busted. You might as well paint your VW van in Rasta colours or, even better, avoid all the messing and just walk up to the nearest cop and punch him square on the nose.
Sadly for the gardaí trying to detect drugged motorists, not all stoners are morons with bumper stickers. Some of them look perfectly normal, lead perfectly normal lives, drive perfectly normal cars. You may be one yourself.
So how to detect them? There is talk of introducing roadside testing kits in the next year.
These would require a saliva or urine or hair sample. The idea of a big ham-fisted buachaill from Offaly shoving their hands down hippies' throats to get a sample fills me with mirth. ("Hey man, get your hand out of there, I'm a vegetarian, dude . . . ") As for gardaí collecting wee in plastic bottles or doing a bit of roadside barbering . . .
Until then, here's a free DIY guide for any garda reading this to help in identifying what your suspected drug-driver is wasted on.
1. Cannabis - Offer driver a slice of cake and tell him a stupid joke. If he rolls around in conniptions of laughter with his face covered in cream, he's been at the ganja. Failing that, tell him you've just stopped him to warn him there's someone out to get him. If he cowers in the boot like a frightened kitten, you can bet your Pink Floyd collection he's binned. The fact the boot is full of empty crisp packets is also a bit of a giveaway.
2. Cocaine - Ask driver his name. If he is still dispensing a stream of self-absorbed drivel 15 minutes later, ignoring your attempts at interjection, he is coked to the gills. If he stabs you while he's talking, he is a crackhead.
3. Opiates - If he is as floppy as a dead eel behind the wheel and insists on calling you "bud" while trying to nick your watch - albeit really, really, really slowly - he's a junkie.
4. Amphetamines - Ask driver to jog on the spot. If he takes off like a scalded greyhound, does six laps of the block and two hundred press-ups before pleading to be allowed to cut the grass at the Garda station with a nail clippers, you can safely assume he's on speed.
5. Ecstasy - Switch on your patrol car's siren. If he hops out of his car, strips to the waist and starts dancing around your car whilst gurning and jabbering like an epileptic gibbon, he's on E. Give him a hug before arresting him. It'll take the edge off wrecking his buzz, man.