Human Drug Testing Doing It’s Job…BUT….

Coke and Coke By Scott Waddell over at Scott Waddell on Racing

It’s been a couple years now that the Maritime Provinces Harness Racing Commission adopted a human drug policy in the Maritimes.

Like other regions, it’s put in place for the obvious reason to keep drug users off of horses. That’s blunt, but that’s my understanding.

Now, here is the part of that I question. First off though I will say that I support the program and what it stands for. It’s been something that was a long time coming and is something required.

I do question however some of the “holes” in the system. First off when it comes to drugs, they obviously stay in your system for a certain period of time. Like alcohol or any type of drug.

Here’s what I wonder about and if it’s really indicative of the driver’s ability to drive, “the day of”. For example, a driver does an illegal drug two-days prior to being tested. On the day a driver drives, he hasn’t ingested drugs of any kind, and is “sober”.

Another scenario. Guy goes out on a Friday night, enjoys a few too many of his fave cocktail, is out to the wee hours of the morning, and drives that afternoon as there is no breathalyser. Is this a good thing?

Overall, the human drug testing is working, it has it’s place in racing. Like anything, it can be improved and changes made. I think there needs to be a type of “day test” that allows the tester to know if the driver is under the influence on the day in question.

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2 Responses to “Human Drug Testing Doing It’s Job…BUT….”

  1. Jeff Baker Says:
    March 13th, 2008 at 12:48 am

    There is a new technology out there now that allows you to do this….check for “current” drug intoxication. It’s called DrugWipe - check it out.

    JB

  2. Harnesslink Says:
    March 14th, 2008 at 1:50 pm

    From Wikipedia

    The Drugwipe test is a procedure which can be used to test if a person has consumed illegal drugs. The test is easy and can be used at border crossings, at traffic stops and in prisons.

    The test is accomplished by with applying water dampened test strips over the forehead of the suspect person and then removed. If the strip turns red, then the drug test is positive, i.e. drugs were consumed. Depending on which place on the strip the red coloration appears, the kind of the consumed substance can also be determined.

    The Pennsylvania Horse Racing Commission looked at DrugWipe for use on horses:

    Dr. Soma discussed the use of Drugwipe technology with the manufactures and did try the sensitivity of the technology on the detection of a narcotic administered to a horse. The set point is too low for the detection of the concentrations usually found in the horse.

    There is the possibility of its use to determine the contamination of a horse by a handler with cocaine on their hands. This aspect will be explored.

    Source - 2005 Minutes (PDF)

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This entry was posted on March 12, 2008 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Drugs, Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.