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The New York State Police announced in a statement that statewide, the campaign is aiming to train over 100 more officers using the Drug Recognition Experts (DRE) training program, administered by the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee.
The DRE program trains officers to recognize impairments and drivers under the influence. With the additional officers trained, the Traffic Safety Committee hopes that it will have a total of 550 trained officers at the end of 2023.
Additionally, the state police announced that it’s requiring all state troopers to attend what’s called the Advanced Roadside Impaired Driving Enforcement training, which provides additional skills for identifying drug-impaired driving.
The announcement comes on a day widely recognized as a holiday in cannabis culture.
Marijuana was first made legal in the state of New York in 2021, with the state’s first dispensary opening near the end of 2022.
While the police’s announcement does not discourage cannabis use altogether, it does highlight the dangers of driving while under the use of any substance, including alcohol and marijuana – something that 12.6 million Americans reported doing in 2018, the CDC reported.
Data for the number of people killed in marijuana-impaired crashes is not yet available through the CDC, but a smaller study conducted found that 25% of drivers who were seriously injured in crashes from September 2019 to July 2021 tested positive for marijuana use at the time of the crash.
New York State Police encourage anyone using marijuana to have a safe travel plan, including not letting friends drive while impaired and not getting in a car with a driver who may be impaired.
For more information about the police’s expanded training protocols, click here.
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