Palm Trees

Drugged Driving a Growing Problem in the United States

It isn’t news to anyone that driving while drunk can put lives at risk. An equally dangerous – but not as talked about – problem is drugged driving. A recent MSNBC report noted that motorists under the influence of drugs are a growing threat on roads within the United States.

Top U.S. drug control officials highlight that while the number of those who drink and drive has fallen as a result of education and law enforcement, there is a growing need for focus on drugged driving. There is now a call for discussions at the U.N. level to tackle “drugged driving.”

"If you think about driving on an American road on a Friday or Saturday evening about 16 percent of the vehicles — one in six of the cars — (the driver) will be under the influence of an illicit or licit drug," Gil Kerlikowske, director of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, said in MSNBC.

A former Seattle police chief, Kerlikowske said figures reveal one of the main problems is people use marijuana and then get behind the wheel. In a statement to the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) meeting in Vienna, he noted that illicit drugs and prescription and other pharmaceutical drugs could cause severe problems on the road.

The United States’ new drug control strategy, set to be published in several weeks, will focus more effort on the prevention and treatment of drug abuse while also continuing to clamp down on drug trafficking domestically and internationally.

"We can say (joint) activity has been intensified (now)," Victor Ivanov, head of the Russian Anti-Narcotics Service told journalists. Russia is the world's largest heroin consumer. And now Russian and U.S. authorities have exchanged names of people working in the drug trade in Afghanistan that they wanted to target.