New Measures Countering Drunk and Drugged Driving Come into Effect

A new regulation for countering drunk and drugged driving is in place as of 28^th of September. Blood samples for the presence of alcohol are taken at emergency centers in the country. Tests can now identify the presence of drugs in the blood even weeks after use.

The well-washed penicillin bottles, coated with plaster and wax, in which the blood for test was collected, will go in history.

The legislators have complied with the experts and abolished methods of testing from more than a century ago.

The tests will be carried out only by modern gas chromatographs. They will also be used to identify narcotic substances, their analogues and metabolites. Some of these substances remain in the body, weeks after their use. The active substance in cannabis - tetrahydrocannabinol, remains in the saliva 30 hours after a cigarette has been smoked, and its metabolites are identified in the blood even 2 weeks later.

Vladimir Todorov from the Association of the Victims of Car Accidents explains that drivers should not think of sitting behind the wheel if they used drugs two weeks earlier, becuase the new technology can identify it and the sanctions include banning from driving for one or two years or fines amounting to thousands of BGN.

Except in the cases specified by the law, laboratory tests are also assigned if the driver decides to challenge the mesures from the portable alchohol breath tester ot the field test. The Ordinance also introduces the use of new technical tools by the controlling bodies.