Drunks on drugs
There’s no throwing city communications director Ginny Merriam for a loop on this one. I passed on Dale Mahlum’s question to her and on came an answer.
Q: “What is the percentage of arrests for driving impaired by drugs vs. driving impaired by drinking over the limit?”
A: “Ha! Thought you’d stump us, eh? Below is an answer from Police Chief Mark Muir:
We only know this when there is blood sample taken and that is a very small percent of the time due to cost, etc. Of those blood samples submitted to the state crime lab for analysis in 2009, almost 35 percent had drugs in their system also. I was led to believe the number was closer to 50 percent, but checked and found out that there were 489 positive samples out of 1441 total.
When we have a driver who gives a low breath sample, we can then go to blood if they appear significantly impaired. Here in Missoula, we have a DRE screen the driver before going to the hospital and taking blood.”
Oh my goodness. What’s a DRE? Who knows what that really is? It can’t be the thing I just saw in medical definitions, “digital rectal exam.” If people who drink and drive really do get some gadget up their rear, I say put it on a billboard. Might help some people think twice.
– Keila Szpaller
February 2nd, 2010 at 3:21 pm
[...] it’s not the other DRE mentioned here. But maybe the digital (cough) exam might be a more effective deterrent for drunk driving … [...]
February 3rd, 2010 at 1:11 am
Drug recognition expert…… another way around our rights…… kinda like anon crime reporting……oh and fuzzy logic dosen’t work with numbers…..it’s closer to 33%