Aim
This paper examines trends in drug driving charges, roadside drug testing, and population drug use in New South Wales (NSW) between 2008 and 2023.
Mobile Drug Testing was introduced in NSW in 2007 along with a new suite of offences for driving a motor vehicle with a prescribed illicit drug present in a driver’s system. These changes improved the ability of the NSW Police Force to identify and proceed against drug driving offenders, as previously they could only charge an offender with driving under the influence of a drug based on a subjective assessment of the driver’s level of intoxication. Similar to Random Breath Testing (RBT), it was anticipated that the high visibility of roadside drug testing would increase the perceived risk of detection amongst drug drivers thereby reducing drug driving behaviours. The Mobile Drug Testing program in NSW is now one of the largest roadside drug testing programs in Australia, representing a quarter of all roadside drug tests undertaken nationwide.