ST reports that common over-the-counter and prescription medications may give a positive result in a saliva sample used for roadside drug testing. In particular codeine could be recognised as Heroin as they are both opiates and diazepam is in the same group as some clubbing drugs. Whether laboratory tests, to follow up roadside results, would be able to differentiate between illegal heroin and legal codeine isn't stated.
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Crikey. I take 7 prescription medications. I bet there's something amongst that lot which would register in a roadside drug test. I'd better mind my Ps and Qs and not attract attention when driving!
Last edited by: L'escargot on Sun 13 May 12 at 09:19
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The article does not address your position Mollusc! The implication is that you are given the roadside test, you fail, follow up in the station(is the equipment more discerning?) 12 month ban and 6 points,
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There must be a lot of common drugs in legal use which have the warning "Do not operate machinery" or "May cause drowsiness" which are ignored. Maybe it is time to RTFM and take note.
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>> Maybe it is time to RTFM and take note.
>>
Well, that's me told!
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Many drugs have the warning "may cause drowsiness" but I suspect it's rather like many food products saying "may contain nuts" to protect the manufacturer rather than actually containing nuts (yes, it is severe allergy - I know a sufferer).
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Smoking, mouthwash and certain yeast infections of the throat can cause a false alcohol breath test, but we don't worry about that.
I suspect the Police will ask if you are on any medication and not it before the test too so if introduced as an excuse later, it will carry little weight.
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I'd be worried. A positive breath test and telling the officer "Oh it must be my mouthwash" isn't going to work, surely? It's too much like "The Dog ate my homework" - Positive is positive so the only way out would seem, to me, to be an expensive court case, costly medical experts and so on.
Same position with the drug test." Oh it's the codeine for my headache" - "Well it shows up as heroin - you're nicked" What's the way out of that?
That said the test hasn't been introduced yet and the full picture is not known. The potential problems have been raised by one of the manufacturers of the equipment which may be used.
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I have seen some organic food labelled to the effect:
"We are obliged under EU regulations to state that this product may contain nuts (or GM food), but in fact it doesn't contain any".
Answering the original post, there are surely two points:
1) Some legal and harmless substances may show up as illegal because of lack of discrimination in the police test equipment
2) Some legal medications may cause drowsiness or otherwise render someone unfit to operate machinery. Driving while under the influence of one of these would presumably be subject to the same considerations as driving having consumed alcohol.
"Over the counter" is often used to imply totally innocuous, but of course alcohol is also usually sold over the counter too.
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I read somewhere, possibly in Jeffrey Archer's account of his porridge, that prisoners will try and get the trusties who do OTC medicine to give them codeine products such Nurofen Plus or Co-Codamol so as to mask their heroin.
I don't think legal medications can be said to be subject to same considerations as alcohol. There is an absolute limit for alcohol, not at all clear how one could be constructed for say codeine or for antihistamines. The latter, usually Doxylamine Succinaste, are also an ingredient of some sress headache remedies though the main brand, Syndol, has been of the market since last year due to a licensing issue. 'Straight' Doxylamine Succinate appears not be sold OTC in the UK but is readily available on the internet (eg Amazon).
Of course all this stuff is going to take years to settle down with various test cases going as far as the Supreme Court. Same sort of thing happened with the breathalyser and again in the mid eighties when breath replaced blood/urine as the evidential proof for DUI. New Law Journal ran an 'intoximeter corner', penned latterly by Stephen Gold, for years after 83/4 as the various attempted defences were struck out or loopholes addressed by changes in procedure.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Sun 13 May 12 at 12:37
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As there is a plethora of drugs that would be brought into this umbrella, then roadside or police station testing equipment can merely be used for arrest and the start of proceedings, prior to chemical analysis at the lab.
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>>
>>
>> I don't think legal medications can be said to be subject to same considerations as
>> alcohol. There is an absolute limit for alcohol, not at all clear how one could
>> be constructed for say codeine or for antihistamines.
>>
What I meant was if you are unfit to drive through taking medication then presumably you could still be prosecuted regardless of the existence of any defined limit?
If you fall over when hauled out of the car, have slurred speech, and can't walk in a straight line, isn't there an offence?
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Having promoted the generally false idea that people driving cars when drunk or 'on drugs' constitute a serious, widespread threat to other road users, politicians are threatening to lumber police with having to go round detecting and arresting them even if their driving is unexceptionable.
So instead of doing the obvious, sensible thing - eyeing vehicles up and pulling them if they seem to be being driven dangerously - there's supposed to be this new thing of pulling drivers at random and getting them with this complex breathalyser thingy. The device will probably work badly and present many problems. That will mean the police won't like it and won't use it much. But the damn silly offensive useless expensive thing will still be there looming over everyone, even the most respectable. What wallies people are. What a PITA the modern world is.
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Lets look at drink drive and mouthwash. All breathtest machines take the sample of air from the bottom of the lungs, not the mouth. Thats why they take a little while to complete the test. Mouthwash will produce a reading if taken immediately prior to the roadside test may cause the machine to throw an error. Mouth alcohol soon dissipates.Back at the nick the formalised process goes through questions ascertaining whether, smoke, mouthwash, alcohol have been consumed in the last 20 minutes. (There is a lot of these products kicking round in the back of Police cars :-) . The question is even asked if you have recently vomited. If the answer to any of these is yes then the process is delayed. So there is no impact with any of these possibilities.
Currently to drive whilst unfit through drink or drugs firstly an Officer to form an opinion based on manner of driving or demeanor prior to arrest. Then a Doctor to go through a series of physical tests to ascertain whether someone should actually be behind the wheel of a car. If the Dr says no samples are taken to ascertain the drug that is causing the issue. So if you are on any medication, legal or illegal, and it is not impairing your ability to drive there is not an issue.
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>>If you fall over when hauled out of the car, have slurred speech, and can't walk in a straight line, isn't there an offence?
Err, I have balance problems, can hardly talk and can't walk in a straight line. No drugs, no booze that's the way I am. DVLA know etc.
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>>I read somewhere, possibly in Jeffrey Archer's account of his porridge
I think you must be the first person I've ever heard of who's admitted to reading any of his stuff. The same as no-one's ever voted for Boris.
;>)
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>> >>I read somewhere, possibly in Jeffrey Archer's account of his porridge
>>
>> I think you must be the first person I've ever heard of who's admitted to
>> reading any of his stuff. The same as no-one's ever voted for Boris.
Whilst I would happily disown anyone who admitted to reading one of Archer's novels, I can see the point of reading about his incarceration, if only to remind me that he did indeed serve a not insubstantial sentence, and to find out if he suffered any form of abuse. (Oh, please let it be so.) However, I would not buy the book, as I would not want to give money to a crook who destroyed the life of an honest journalist who did no more than pursue the truth. As far as I am aware, Archer has never apologised for that and hence he is not reformed.
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"Honest Journalist" I tend to think such a breed does not exist.
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>> I tend to think such a breed does not exist.
Perhaps not as a breed. But there are certainly individuals who are honest. However there may be differences about what 'honest' means. People think journalism is one thing but actually it is several, and 'honesty' will take different forms in the different branches of journalism (e.g. news reporting, campaigning and editorializing).
Journalism isn't the same as academic research. It's done on the hoof, and with news reporting often in a terrible hurry. Quite frankly if you can't manage to fudge and elide a bit you can't really do it at all. But fudging and eliding the odd detail can be done without being misleading, and should be of course.
Reptiles en masse in a confined space can be fairly toxic though. As a breed they are sometimes far from pretty. Quite a few are highly immoral and lie to their informants and readers as a matter of course. I've met some like that but I don't know them.
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It's not journalists who tell lies, it's people who tell lies to journalists.
My court reports are quotes from what is said in court.
It's an adversarial system, one says one thing, one says the other, so one must be lying.
But both sides are published.
Similarly, my news reports are based on quotes from the various people involved in the story.
Inevitably, there will be contradictions.
I don't tell lies in a story, not because I'm honest, but because I don't tell anyone anything.
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I know that journos tell lies. I have a very recent near personal experience of a journo telling lies. And the problem is that most of them have absolutely no compunction or care about the ruined lives of those they lie about.
The story involves Pudsey the dancing dog BTW.
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...And the problem is that most of them have absolutely no compunction or care about the ruined lives of those they lie about...
Purely your opinion, which as ever, you portray as fact.
So from a journalistic point of view, we now need to look at your qualifications for giving such an opinion.
Your user name helps us here.
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I don't have to justify it to you, you and your profession do not have have the credentials or history to defend it. I wouldn't trust any of you to sit the right way on a toilet seat.
I don't need to be an expert, merely recent near personal experience as I said. I don't need to be qualified for that.. Just like a journo actually.
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...I don't need to be qualified for that.. Just like a journo actually...
I am a qualified journalist, just like the vast majority of my colleagues.
It's not the hardest qualification in the world, any reasonably intelligent person could achieve it, which I think you could say about most professions.
Increasingly, it's my experience which gets me through the working day unscathed, which again, I expect most (experienced) workers would say.
However, unlike most branches of professions such as medicine, the law and teaching, there's no legal or even regulatory requirement to be qualified.
Anyone with a computer - or even without - can describe themselves as a journalist.
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Iffy,
You're a court reporter. You may well report exactly what happens in court as it happens and throughout the case. There are however plenty of your colleagues who happily report the opening for the prosecution and the more dramatic bits of evidence and cross examination but omit the factual or legal context (or contrariwise overplay it if it involves the HRA, Health and Safety or something else) because that's what the target audience want to read.
In a wider context it's worth looking at the so called (good journo phrase there) super injunction cases - most of which did no more than anonymise the party who had sometihng to lose by being named. One involved an innocent, vulnerable and not too bright member of the public who got involved in an exchange of 'sexting' with a famous personality. She was lied to about the consequences of what happened and offered a mix of incentives and threats in an attempt to get her to 'expose' the other party.
There are plenty of defamation case, and plenty of evidence to the Leveson inquiry to suggest that in this instance at least Zero is not talking out of Hj's titfer.
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...You're a court reporter...
Whichever way you cut it, the verdict is accurately reported.
If the punter is found guilty he is portrayed as per the prosecution evidence.
If the punter is found not guilty, the readers are told he didn't do it.
And he/she gets the opportunity via a post-match interview to reinforce the message by describing his year of hell, how he's going to sue the coppers and so on.
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>> I know that journos tell lies. I have a very recent near personal experience of
>> a journo telling lies. And the problem is that most of them have absolutely no
>> compunction or care about the ruined lives of those they lie about.
Quite right. One first hand example proves that they are all no good liars and crooks.
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>> Quite right. One first hand example proves that they are all no good liars and
>> crooks.
It proves at least one case, and there is sufficient reported to provide evidence it was not unique.
Never let the truth get in the way off a good story.
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>> It proves at least one case, and there is sufficient reported to provide evidence it
>> was not unique.
So there is more than one example. There you go, they are all liars.
>> Never let the truth get in the way off a good story.
Not sure of the relevance of that. There are laws such as libel, and contempt of court.
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>> It's not journalists who tell lies, it's people who tell lies to journalists.
I suspect there are several classes of journalists.
Local ones are poorly paid, work long hours, and probably tell the truth as far as they can. After all, there is not much you can really invent when documenting the visit by a local dignatory to the opening of a new abattoir.
War journalists do a dangerous job, to pursue the truth. I am sure some news journalists and investigative journalists also put themselves in danger. I have recently had contact with a television producer who is investigating a rogue trader I have had dealings with.
But if you look at a paper such as the Daily Mail, there have been some cases of willfully negligent reporting that stir up racial tensions. One concerned a muslim who complained to the council about the smell of bacon sandwiches that came from a cafe. Except he didn't. It was as good as made up. It is possible the reporter was simply lazy, and did not check information, but that is no excuse when you report such a story in a national newspaper.
And I would argue that the likes of Polly Toynbee, Peter Hitchens and Melanie Phillips are little more than extremist fruitcakes with little contact with the real world. Power without responsibility you might say.
And then there are the journalists who harass people. Some female celebrities suffer rather frightening abuse at the hands of these lice. Some even try to bait the celebrity to get them angry, so they can get a photo of the celebrity attacking an 'innocent' reporter.
I suspect the lice and fruitcakes are a tiny minority. So yes, honest journalist is a reasonable term to use. :)
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>
>> I suspect the lice and fruitcakes are a tiny minority. So yes, honest journalist is
>> a reasonable term to use. :)
There are this who makes things up, there are those who embellish, there are those who omit things (vital things sometimes) and there are those who put a slant on things. All of them have to sell airtime or newsprint where plain simple factual honesty is boring.
By its very nature, journalism is not honest. Try reading two different newspapers to get the idea.
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>> By its very nature, journalism is not honest. Try reading two different newspapers to get the idea.
Sorry old cock, but that's cock. You don't have a clear view of what journalism is.
Try asking two people to describe the same, perhaps complex event that they have witnessed or been asked to investigate. They will see it differently and that will be reflected in their accounts.
A 'trained' hack like Iffy, or an intelligent well-meaning one, will take as much care as possible to get names, dates and descriptions of events accurately and represent them accurately in words. But there may well still be differences, even before the editorial element, with its perhaps special and hidden (but usually quite obvious and crass) agenda, has got its mucky paws on the copy. Cunning hacks self-censor to avoid having their stuff messed up. But all professional hacks soon become a bit resigned about that. There's no way of avoiding it.
You have to know how to read a paper or listen to a news. Most people haven't much of a clue. But it doesn't stop them from arguing from the particular to the general, thinking that because they've come across a crooked hack all hacks are crooked. Just isn't true.
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>> By its very nature, journalism is not honest. Try reading two different newspapers to get
>> the idea.
No, you're right, politics is a precise science, and those pesky journalists purposefully distort the indisputable truth in order to further their own agendas.
Actually they do report facts, such as Minister X having discussions with his French counterpart in order to address a particular concern. However, interpretation will always depend on your own political leanings, and beliefs. And bear in mind that politicians do not always tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So it is up to someone to interpret their utterances for the unwashed masses. Do you really think Greek ministers are not now in the middle of looking into how to exit the Euro, and Euro-wonks aren't actively colluding, and have been doing so for a long time now, despite saying there are not exit mechanisms for the Euro?
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...Some female celebrities suffer rather frightening abuse at the hands of these lice...
Bare in mind the stories given by celebrities and others to the Leveson inquiry were not tested - there was no opportunity for the accuser to be questioned by the person he/she was accusing.
The same is true for those in the trade who have given evidence.
But as someone in that trade, I found the evidence given by the hacks generally more believable.
And that's not me blindly sticking up for the job, if I thought the reverse was true, I would say so.
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>> Bare in mind the stories
I don't normally draw attention to inadvertent misspellings and the like, but in your case Iffy it is perhaps a duty.
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...but in your case Iffy it is perhaps a duty...
Mind must have been scrambled by reading about Zero getting wet and naked with Carol Vorderman.
But it also makes another point about dishonesty in journalism.
There is no solidarity, so if you publish a pile of porkies, there's always someone waiting to point it out.
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>> scrambled by reading about Zero getting wet and naked with Carol Vorderman.
Er, who is this Carol Vorderman? A gal, or some sort of awful snaggle-toothed Louisiana swamp rat with perverse habits?
I think we should be told.
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A once winsome welsh tv presenter with a penchant for mental arithmetic AC. Might still hold a certain appeal to the more mature or shorter sighted viewer I suppose.
:-)
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Carol Vorderman lovely lady half Dutch and good at maths.>:)
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...half Dutch...
The second half, presumably.
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...Yes Iffy the mad half...
She always comes over as being a very likeable lass.
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She does Iffy her father never bothered with her and she has done well for herself.Good luck to her.
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>> Yes Iffy the mad half.
Given that the other half is Welsh, the mad half has got competition. ;) But seriously, she never seems mad to me. I saw her on Question Time, and she sounds balanced and sane.
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Tongue in cheeck Leif.She is intelligent, there was a television program about her family history.Good to watch.
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Depends on where you are, if you are in the woods, then you will have bears in mind.
~Yahoo!
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Very many years ago - in Cyprus as it happened - the Daily Mail sent a female reporter/columnist, quite well known at the time, to write a feature on the EOKA terrorist campaign and how the UK forces were dealing with it.
I was with 45Cdo. R.M. in the Troodos mountains, where she spent a good deal of time and despite being given every courtesy, hospitality and plenty of interviews, the eventual story bore no relation whatsoever to the real situation on the ground.
Ever since that day, I have been deeply cynical about the veracity of any news report unless it is a bald recitation of provable facts.
Even then I'm doubtful about the accuracy of many stories.
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>> ...Some female celebrities suffer rather frightening abuse at the hands of these lice...
>>
>> Bare in mind the stories given by celebrities and others to the Leveson inquiry were
>> not tested - there was no opportunity for the accuser to be questioned by the
>> person he/she was accusing.
And bear in mind that journalists have been found guilty of hacking into private communications, and also of threatening people e.g. if you don't admit to this lesser action, we'll print one more serious. I recall seeing a journalist on a TV comedy programme, alongside Prescott. The journalist was a louse by his own admissions. He saw nothing wrong with hacking phones, and blagging personal medical details from hospitals. I think those actions are despicable. I am not saying all journalists are like that, but there is a minority in certain area e.g. celebrity gossip. And if you don't think using long lenses to intrude on private events is not harassment then we must disagree. And I do believe that a few journalists behave in an appalling manner to celebrities. Why do you doubt that? Are journalists not human? You know the rewards for a celebrity picture are high, and that is what provokes harassment. The problem here is that we, the consumers, want pictures of celebrities doing naughty things, or whatever, and we buy more papers when they run such pictures.
However, I know there are some photographers who are friendly with celebrities, and they greet each other, and exchange a word or two. Some, if not most, celebrities benefit from photographers and journalists.
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...Some, if not most, celebrities benefit from photographers and journalists...
Not really my area, but celebrity journalism is a very murky world, and not just from the journalists' side.
Some celebrities go to all kinds of lengths to get some tosh into print.
It follows some of those lengths are just as dishonest as anything any journalist has ever done.
Many long lens stories are set ups, as in someone on the celebrity's side tells the snappers where the celebrity is going to be.
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>> Some celebrities go to all kinds of lengths to get some tosh into print.
>>
>> It follows some of those lengths are just as dishonest as anything any journalist has
>> ever done.
>>
>> Many long lens stories are set ups, as in someone on the celebrity's side tells
>> the snappers where the celebrity is going to be.
Absolutely. I do not doubt for one moment that what you say is correct. Life is not black and white.
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>> I don't tell lies in a story, not because I'm honest, but because I don't tell anyone anything.
Heh heh Iffsky... 'I am a telephone.'
Love it. Just love it. It's true too.
I haven't always been strictly factual in stuff I've done. I sometimes wanted to make a point and sometimes cut the odd corner. Only for the best motives of course, and without actually lying...
I've never knowingly lied in print although I've been well tactful a few times. I've never ratted on anyone for off-the-record (although I might have done if the informant had been evil enough). I've tried to tell it as I saw it, in my dilettante career as a hack. It was good fun, damn stressful and financially unrewarding on the whole, although doing it took me to places and made me meet people, all pluses.
Some of the nastiest, most racist and yobbish hacks I ever met were Beirut heroes. They might have proved to be sterling chaps if the military carp had really hit the fan where we were (they had been sent there in that hope by their various papers and agencies), but frankly I doubt it. They were horrid, and cynical with it. You really wouldn't want to be dodging bullets or undergoing interrogation by moronic eighteen-year-old secret policemen with carphounds whose company you could hardly bear.
Fortunately nothing like that happened. Things went quiet and they all sodded off to some even nastier place.
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I should have added: I've met a lot of good eggs when hacking. I helped them and they helped me. Those Beirut figures were just one group in one place. God they were offensive. Stupid too.
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And there was me showing off my little bit of legal knowledge and the thread suddenly becomes a journalist / celeb discussion :-)
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Celebs Fullchat? Who mentioned them?
I don't know about anyone else but I certainly saw and filleted with my (former) hack's eagle eye your very reassuring post. What you describe though is a rational process, the way it should be done actually. But it doesn't always happen like that.
I suppose the odd accidental incident where some poor innocent motorist is done for technical reasons has to be expected really. I must say traffic police have always seemed very rational and agreeable to me, even the ones who once did me for speeding.
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>> I must say traffic police have always seemed very
>> rational and agreeable to me, even the ones who once did me for speeding.
Wouldn't you feel pleased if your office was a high performance car, and you had the right to drive fast as and when the occasion demanded it, and nick people who drove dangerously? The ordinary plod drives round in a car fit for Noddy and Big Ears, and spends his/her day attending domestic disputes, pub incidents, cats up trees and other exciting events.
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So traffic plod are like rich people, too well off to be anything but genial and relaxed? Except for the nasty uptight ones of course. Bound to be one or two really.
All I can say is that I've been fairly lucky with them so far. Deservedly so of course.
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>> I think you must be the first person I've ever heard of who's admitted to
>> reading any of his stuff. The same as no-one's ever voted for Boris.
>>
>> ;>)
>>
In my defence it ws the best I could find in 5mins at at King's Cross to relieve the boredom of train journey and a work 'Awayday'.
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>> In my defence it ws the best I could find in 5mins at at King's
>> Cross to relieve the boredom of train journey and a work 'Awayday'.
I guess you had already read the labels on your clothes, and old receipts lying around in your pockets before you lowered yourself to Archer?
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Well has had sold between 250 and 400 million of his books - his estimate is 330 million. I don't like the writing style but the short stories are quite well plotted.
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Common Medications may cause Drugs Test Fail - L'escargot
