By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, May 6, 1992
The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | B01
In a program hailed as a new weapon against drugged drivers, state and local law enforcement officials Tuesday dedicated a center where suspected impaired drivers will be tested. They also recognized 40 police officers who have completed training as the state’s first drug recognition experts.
The Drug Recognition Enforcement program takes the guesswork out of prosecuting motorists suspected of using drugs, said Paul Brickfield, first assistant Bergen County prosecutor.
Instead of relying mainly on a police officer’s description of a motorist’s conduct, prosecutors will be able to use the results of a set of tests administered soon after a driver is stopped.
The officers 20 from the state police, 10 from the Bergen County Police Department, and 10 from municipal police departments have been trained to recognize and measure symptoms induced by various types of drugs, Brickfield said at the dedication.
The testing center is located in a wing donated by Bergen Pines County Hospital in Paramus.
John Pescatore, director of the Bergen County Office of Highway Safety, said the program plugs a gap that exists in the prosecution of drunken and drug-impaired drivers.
“Take the Bergen County Police Department,” Pescatore said. “They make over 200 drunk-driving arrests each year, well over 300 arrests of people driving with narcotics in their car, but fewer than 10 arrests of those under the influence of drugs.
The Drug Recognition Enforcement Program was developed in Los Angeles and is now used in 20 states, including New York, Brickfield said.
The state Highway Traffic Safety Division, working with a $14,000 seed grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, chose Bergen County as the place to test the program because of its almost 3,000 miles of interstate, state, county, and municipal roadways.
The training included classroom examinations and practical experience working with drug suspects and identifying what types of drugs they were using, Brickfield said. The officers worked with suspects arrested on sweeps by narcotics bureaus in Jersey City and Paterson.
An examination of a suspect should take about 45 minutes, said state police Sgt. Frank R. Emig, who, along with Bergen County Police Sgt. Robert Brenzel, is a coordinator of the program. Some tests, such as the balance, walk and turn, one-leg stand, and finger-to-nose, are similar to the roadside tests administered to suspected drunken drivers.
Others, such as examinations of pupils, measurement of pulse rate, blood pressure, and body temperature, and toxicological tests, are scientific tests designed to determine which category of drugs a person may be using, Emig said. By the time a test is concluded, the officer would be able to testify as an expert in court on the category of drugs the suspect was using at the time of the arrest, he said.
About 18 people have been charged since DRE officers began issuing summonses to people for driving under the influence of drugs in January, Brickfield said. A few suspects pleaded guilty while several cases are pending, he said.
No one has been convicted in a contested case, however. Brickfield said the first case was lost last week when a Bergen County Superior Court judge questioned not the credibility of the drug recognition expert, but the initial stop that led to the suspect’s being charged.
He added that the program also would have to survive a judicial challenge of a conviction in New Jersey, as it has in other states, before it is accepted as an established enforcement mechanism.
James A. Arena, director of the state Highway Traffic Safety Division, said it was a natural evolution from drunken driving enforcement to trying to get drugged drivers off the road. In 1981, he said, 33 percent of fatal accidents in the state involved a drunken driver or victim, compared with 18.7 percent in 1991. The national average for 1991, the latest figure available, was 39 percent, he said.
“Consistent with the scourge of drugs in our schools, workplace, the whole society, really,” he said, the percentage of drug-related fatal accidents and injuries has increased alarmingly, to as high as 30 percent in 1991.
Caption: 2 COLOR PHOTOS – The testing center includes a holding cell, top. 2 – Above, Sgt. Frank Emig watching Jennifer Dalton, a public information assistant, in a simulated driver test. – PETER MONSEES / THE RECORD 1
ID: 17376436 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)