The Bong and Winding Road

(As it appeared as the cover story for Crave Magazine)







The busy arterial road under the Gardener Expressway has fallen silent as the night draws toward the wee hours of the morning. A sparse procession of cars files down the boulevard. Brake lights suddenly glow as a battalion of police cars comes into sight. Neon pylons create a landing strip, guiding vehicles into the clutches of the R.I.D.E program. Within seconds, each car will be stopped next to a police officer.

“How are you doing tonight, Sir?” Flashlight pressed against the side of his head, the constable leans down with his face nearly in the driver-side window. Eyes and flashlight drill into the face of a young man in a black Mazda 3. “Have you had any alcohol to drink tonight?” He peers harder, his face a strange quilt of reflected light: orange from the street lamps, overlaid with spatters of blue and red from flashing police lights. A short pause, then the next question. “Have you done anything else tonight that would impair your judgment behind the wheel?”

You haven’t heard that last question yet, but soon you will.

We’re all familiar with the toll from drunk driving across Canada. Seventy-two thousand people are injured or killed annually. The equivalent of three and a half sold out Toronto Maple Leafs games at the nearby Air Canada Centre. Picture them crawling away from their seats with blood pouring down their faces, broken limbs crunching as they limp, or lying unconscious on stretchers, or even consigned to a cavalcade of gurneys draped with body bags.

With the number of motorists growing, no effort is spared to make them aware of the repercussions for driving while under the influence. But the expression “impaired driving”, always assumed to mean drunk driving, is in its infancy stages and is still evolving. It will soon mean any narcotic that compromises a driver’s ability to operate a vehicle.

On July second of 2008, the criminal code was amended. Prime Minister Stephen Harper proclaimed from a podium that police officers will now conduct road side sobriety tests for drugs as well as alcohol. In a word, smokers and tokers will be tested and charged the same way as a drunk driver.

Toronto Police Officer Paul Bainard is an avid student of Bill C-32. He works for the traffic services unit and takes great pride in bringing sobriety to the streets of Toronto. “It (was) not unusual for us on the R.I.D.E program to have a guy roll down his window and just be knocked over by the smell of dope. At that point, everything that we wanted to do was (forbidden because) there was no law against it.” The anti-drug animus in his voice would scare the Tylenol out of the mouth of a driver with a headache. “If you were using marijuana it was (a) grey area where you get a pass,” he said.

Now it’s not. With the law enacted, it’s time for enforcement. “We’re trying to dispel the myth that marijuana and its sister drugs are blameless and safe to drive with,” explains Bainard.

The trick is setting a standard. How do you measure highness?

Bill C-32 allows officers to conduct Standardized Field Sobriety Tests or SFST’s for short. These are one-leg stands, horizontal eye movement and walking tests which will help officers decipher whether someone is high on drugs. If the testing does not show anything, the officer will be able to spend some time with the suspect and see if they do anything suspicious or strange. With the amendment to the code, the government has also pledged to train more Drug Recognition Experts. The acronym-happy police are already calling them D.R.E’s. They will spot the effects of marijuana, ecstasy and cocaine by observing mannerisms.

The iconic Mother’s Against Drunk Driving group has widened its scope to incorporate drugs into their campaigns. Caroline Swinson, is the chair of the national board has been with the group for over 15 years. “Our mission statement is to stop impaired driving and to support the victims of a violent crime,” she says. Many understand M.A.D.D as an organization focused on spreading awareness about drunk driving. But “about three or four years ago we changed the message to specifically include the fact that drug-use and drug driving was getting to be more prevalent“.

M.A.D.D. will reach over 600,000 high school students in the country this year. Given M.A.D.D.’s close ties with the police, would it be safe to say that R.I.D.E spot checks will be more youth focused as well?


(Sergeant Brian Bowman at a R.I.D.E spot check)

“No. But…no,” reluctantly answers Sergeant Brian Bowman of the Toronto Police Traffic Services Unit. Bowman stands 6’2’’ under his hat and has a mustache that would weigh down an average man’s lip. Some nights, Bowman is in charge of the RIDE program and chooses the locations. To the authority of his uniform he adds the magnitude of a small Sherman tank. He explains that it’s not so much that cops target kids. More that they’re hard to miss. “Youth don’t have the experience of (intoxicants) so they display indications of consuming alcohol or drugs.”








(Taking the test)




The real problem is that a cop can’t tell the difference between the legal drugs and the illegal ones. Let’s say it’s allergy season. Nothing like a little Visine to sooth those burning red eyes. After administering it, you and your glossy eyes go out for a short drive to take care of some errands. The Visine is on the passenger seat. Because it’s mom’s car, there’s also an air freshener.

So your car smells like Hawaiian Breeze and your eyes are glazed like a German cake. Could look suspicious to some. While driving, you spot flashing lights. An accident? But no. It’s a RIDE program. You stop and look upwards into the officer’s face. Your eyes are still a bit red and very watery and your car smells fantastic. Will the Police Officer think that’s suspicious?

“If an officer sees Visine, then it’s a logical question. Will that guarantee you that you’re going to be hooked into the (sobriety tests)? No. The officer still has to have reasonable belief that something in your system is affecting the way you drive,” says Sergeant Bainard.

An officer will look for two things: odour, and emission. Sergeant Bainard then goes into his questioning routine. “Had anything to drink tonight? Do I smell marijuana in the car? Sort of the same idea. Where were you? What were you doing? What have you got, what have you had? If you answer positive, then the officer can have reasonable suspicion that you have substance in your body.”

Fear not, youth of Canada. The police want you safe at home., not in the slammer. And not only you. Old people are also doing drugs, though not necessarily the same ones.

“There are far more people driving impaired (from) prescription drugs than the average person out there understands. They can be illegal (or) legal drugs,” chimes in Swinson during her anti-drug spiel.

Bainard agrees. “Pain killers for arthritis and those sorts of things, the doctor says take one every day.” But people may take more. This abuse can sometimes skew the senior’s reaction time – already pretty slow. (ha) Even if you did it innocently, the police will not cut you slack. “A drug is a drug,” says Bainard.

Impaired driving may seem like a faceless crime: crime that officers chase when they have nothing better to do. That was the attitude of a gentleman charged with impaired driving on November 8th. While waiting for the ticket his leather jacket and greasy hair kept him warm. When his new car (a taxi) arrived, he and his cologne-drenched friends climbed in, he yelled to Sergeant Bowman to go out and catch the “real criminals.” The grease ball didn’t realize he was one impaired moment away from killing another young person on their way home from work, or mutilating a mother and child.

It was then that Sergeant Bowman revealed the true nature of a police officer. He didn’t stop the cab and lecture the young driver. Instead he spoke thoughtfully about the impaired injuries he has seen, including the young man on the Gardiner who “was partially ejected from his vehicle and had half his face scraped off.”

On the way to the station he quietly observed that police are “not just a bunch of thugs out there because there is no other job we can do and it gives us a chance to boss people around.” He explains “the officers out here tonight believe in what they are doing. They don’t stand out in the cold for the money.”

You may be the worlds most amazing parallel parker and maybe you can get from Humber College to downtown Toronto in 20 minutes. Add drugs or alcohol and your judgment becomes skewed. If you don’t believe it, consider the people who won’t see a family member or friend because somebody thought a toke would improve their night out.

Don’t become a victim of Bill C-32. If you are impaired; take a cab or stay where you are. You may not receive a thank you for doing so, but it is much more rewarding than having to explain to your loved ones that you killed or injured someone because you just couldn’t say no to an inebriating substance.


A Special thank you to the Traffic Services Dept. who allowed me to ride-a-long with them and put up with my relentless questions and photo taking for 10 hours.