Police Kick Off Program to Warrantlessly Test Saliva to Check for “Drugged Driving”

By Jay Srymopoulos

Michigan State Police have begun a year-long pilot program, being held in five Michigan counties, to warrantlessly test the saliva of drivers suspected of drugged driving.

“The five-county pilot program will be used to help determine accuracy and reliability of the tests,” Gov. Snyder said in June after signing the bill into law, as MLive reported.

Residents of these five unlucky counties will be forced to act as guinea pigs by the state, in what is sure to be an exercise in trampling on civil and constitutional rights of individuals.

The program calls for Drug Recognition Experts (DRE officers), a designation given to cops who earn a designation certifying them to visually recognize if a person is under the influence of a controlled substance, to administer the tests.

“Saliva analysis will only be administered by a DRE, [Banner] said, and will be given along with the drug recognition 12-step evaluation currently used. DREs employed by state, county and municipal agencies could also be involved,” according to MLive.

The imposition of a pilot program to warrantlessly test the saliva of drivers is a clear advancement of a dystopian police state-like agenda that infringes on citizens’ rights without hesitation — under the guise of keeping the public safe.

According to a report by MLive:

The Alere DDS2 oral fluid test instrument will be used to measure for the presence of drugs in drivers’ saliva, Michigan State Police spokeswoman Shanon Banner said. The device will record results based on threshold limits set by the manufacturer and test for six substances: amphetamine, benzodiazepines, marijuana/cannabis, cocaine, methamphetamine and opiates.

Banner said it should be noted that threshold levels for saliva are different than that of blood.

Drug Recognition Experts (DREs), officers with advanced training in the assessment of alcohol and drug impairment, will carry the devices, MSP said. DREs only will administer an oral fluid test under the pilot program, Banner said.

The drug test will take place roadside, like alcohol preliminary breath test (PBT).

Refusing the oral fluid swab test, a preliminary test, will result in a civil infraction, just like an alcohol PBT, Banner said.

DREs will continue to take blood draws as part of standard procedure in addition to saliva tests, Banner said.

Naturally, no one wants an impaired person to get behind the wheel and potentially harm innocent people. However, there are already programs in place to prevent this. Warrantlessly testing saliva is another power grab by the police state to roll out inaccurate science that jeopardizes innocent people’s lives.

Attorney Neil Rockind, founder of Southfield-based criminal defense law firm Rockind Law, told MLive he opposes the law and called the proposed testing “bad science.”

“The criminal justice system wants to take science and turn it into a fast, easy utility,” he said.

“Science is neither fast nor easy.”

Rockind says the program sets a “dangerous precedent” for Michigan.

“A pilot program is a test program and, in this case, treats people as guinea pigs to be studied,” Rockind said.

People are not guinea pigs. No citizen should be the subject of a test program when their liberty and way of life are on the line.

Rockind himself was certified in DRE training and believes the process is fundamentally flawed.

“What works in a lab doesn’t work in court,” he said.

Several studies have found that impairment caused by THC can’t accurately be tested by blood.

In fact, the Arizona Supreme Court unanimously ruled in November last year the presence of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) — the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis — in the blood does not necessarily indicate impairment.

Additionally, the lack of a requirement that law enforcement secure a warrant to test a bodily fluid is extremely troubling and should raise a red flag for all civil libertarians.

The arbitrary nature of the entire process will almost certainly lend itself to profiling and harassment of certain targeted groups and individuals – based upon unfounded “science”.

Jay Syrmopoulos is a geopolitical analyst, freethinker, and ardent opponent of authoritarianism. He is currently a graduate student at the University of Denver pursuing a masters in Global Affairs and holds a BA in International Relations. Jay’s writing has been featured on both mainstream and independent media – and has been viewed tens of millions of times. You can follow him on Twitter @SirMetropolis and on Facebook at SirMetropolis. This article first appeared at The Free Thought Project.

Activist Post Daily Newsletter

Subscription is FREE and CONFIDENTIAL
Free Report: How To Survive The Job Automation Apocalypse with subscription

11 Comments on "Police Kick Off Program to Warrantlessly Test Saliva to Check for “Drugged Driving”"

  1. Had this for a while now in the UK, mainly for cannabis and cocaine

    • Germany too. They use test strips rubbed against the forehead to collect sweat. In fact I used to agonize over this 15 years ago, every time I got on the Autobahn I was taking a huge risk with my license as the Autobahnpolizei of various states started to use these test strips and I haven’t exactly started smoking pot just last year when it is starting to become legal pretty much everywhere.

    • This has also been going on for a while now here in Australia. I used to have an issue with it when I used to smoke pot. Now that i’ve given up pot i’m no longer perturbed by it though I do feel psychiatric drugs also impair people’s cognitive skills and this is being ignored by governments.

  2. ‘power grab?’ try ‘insane

  3. Considering the author has a masters degree in Global Affairs, I question his loyalty. That said, I think the reason they’re pulling these obnoxious driving laws out of their collective bum is because “globalists” want us out of our cars for good. This is no longer theory; Agenda 2030, the baby of the unelected board of Roman controlled (Roman Canon Civil Law – Admiralty – UCC, UNIFORM Commercial Code) sell-outs called the UN, is in full-swing toward this goal. See: Los Angeles.

    First they’ll go driverless, then some false flag will happen taking down the computers in these cars and maybe several dozen people, to push the idea home that driving is entirely unsafe, costs the taxpayer too much money, and ruins the environment creating the dreaded (but needed for life) CO2.

    We will be shoved via fire, flood, disease, or contamination, etc. into megacities where we will live where we work (with boxes on our heads – our lives will be entirely virtual) and get around via bikes or public transportation. Rich and powerful people will still be able to drive on their new freeways, replete with corridors, police/military watch-towers and 20′ walls, because they’ll be the only ones who can afford the ridiculously expensive tolls they’re going to charge for every mile.

    More than half the land in the US will be set aside for wildlife preservation, forbidding any of us from going there (without more tons of money), and wildlife will even have their own corridors where they can roam through cities unfettered.

    We’ll all be on a UBI (Universal Basic Income) which will fluctuate by our social and environmental behavior using Carbon Credits. Have too much trash? Debit your Carbon Credit chip. Say something questionable on social media? People are already being fired for this, soon we will lose Carbon Credits for it. Say something positive about the government? Gain credits. Sacrifice/ration your own food? More credit. Those who go along with the program will gain, and those who dare question it will lose.

    • So here is what you do… You tell the LEO that you are a non-person, non-resident, natural man/woman human being; and that unless he has probable cause to believe that you are one of the persons
      who use the highways for trade, commerce, or hire; that is, if you earn your
      living on the road, and if you use extraordinary machines on the roads. And if not your only question is – “am I free to go”? All Motor Vehicle laws have to do with transportation – commerce.

      • Since requirements for hiring highway patrol are that you NOT have college education & sometimes IQ not over 110 so you will follow orders without question; do you really think any of them will understand or care about this especially since many are bullies or on steroids?
        That and if they can force blood draw by arresting you then they will use this for spit as well. Problem is the inaccuracies ,invasion of privacy, hackability of system & the fact that they are using this to put us all into a DNA data base for future crimes.

  4. Anyone in a position of ‘authority’ who endorses this is a traitor and deserves to be executed for treason.

  5. how many hours spread over how many days are these officers going to receive the tuition for their certification?
    how many of those hours will be paid? (where the county expects officers to work if they are getting paid) or how many hours on personal time? (and what kinds of incentives are they looking at to encourage compliance?)
    somehow… i don’t see many “certified” DREs being available, and so it will actually just be normal officers – and will that be allowable in court?
    ask for his certificate, chances are 99% of the time, you’ll have to be let go; otherwise your lawyer should argue in court, probably have all cases kicked out.
    first question – what are the officers qualifications?

  6. You want my saliva? Scrape it off the asphalt.

Leave a comment