KNOW YOUR RIGHTS
professional must take blood on one occasion and separate it in half – offering half to the driver. That blood must then be stored correctly by the police and securely couriered to a laboratory, where it is independently tested for drugs. And it is only months later when those results come back do the police know whether they can charge the driver.
Removing blood tests for drug-drivers
The last major proposal could remove the requirement to take blood from alleged drug drivers. This is a major change to the current law, but to understand why it is being proposed we must firstly look at the current drug drive procedures and compare that to drink driving.
When a person is stopped for drink driving, the police will take them into the station and require them to provide breath on an evidential breath machine. The breath machine is simple to use. The driver provides two specimens of breath, and the machine will immediately produce a printout showing exactly how much alcohol is in the offender’s body.
The machine self-calibrates before and after each use and will reject any reading if there are interfering substances. It’s quick, accurate and gives the police an immediate reading – so they know whether to charge or release.
The problem with breath machines is that they can only detect alcohol, not drugs.
When somebody is arrested under suspicion of drug driving, they provide a roadside saliva swab. If that is positive for drugs, they are arrested and taken into the station but instead of giving breath, they must give blood. That’s where it gets a little more complicated.
Firstly, there cannot be any medical reasons why the person cannot give blood. Then, a healthcare
PHTM SEPTEMBER 2025
The issue the police have is that these added layers of procedure make it easier for mistakes to be made, and on occasions, if there are delays at the laboratory or in the posting of the blood sample, the delays could mean the police fall out of time to prosecute. And of course, it could be months and months between the arrest and the court date.
These new proposals seek to remove all of those problems. They would allow the police to charge somebody based purely on a roadside swab.
In theory, this will speed up prosecutions, reducing the amount of time between arrest and the court hearing, it will remove a significant amount of the police station procedure and therefore the potential for mistakes, and it will save a considerable amount of public money by removing the need for blood testing at independent laboratories.
It isn’t clear, however, exactly how the police are going to prosecute based on a roadside saliva swab alone. Blood tests give the police a specific reading, telling the court exactly how much drugs were in a person’s body and whether they were above/below the limit. Giving the driver half also allows the driver the opportunity for the driver to have their own specimen tested as a failsafe to ensure they are being fairly prosecuted. The current swabs don’t do either of these things, so it remains to be seen exactly how the government is going to ensure accuracy and fairness.
We will have to wait to the autumn, and possibly beyond, to see exactly how these news laws are going to work in practice.
If you need any advice on motoring matters or you have any questions about the proposals and how they could affect you, please email
advice@pattersonlaw 69
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