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-   -   Driving under influence, why only alcohol is prosecuted (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/63710-driving-under-influence-why-only-alcohol-prosecuted.html)

Police in all major cities has finally woken up to the scrouge of driving under influence or DUI its called in the west.
In the west, the crackdown has been mostly on Alcohol, and our police here has followed suit.
However in all this noise over driving after alcohol, many other people who are driving under influence are ignored.
Unlike the west, there is a huge population which drives stoned out on local stuff like Bhaang etc.,
there are many local festivals like holi etc., where people consume these things in copius quantities, and then drive without any problem because the breathanalyzer will give a negative score.
Unfortunately, these people are equally, if not more dangerous than those driving under influence of alchohol?
Does police do drives to check such people who drive under influence of drugs other than Alcohol? Is there any provision in Law to prosecute them? and do the cops have the equipment to catch these offenders?
On festival days, there are a large number of fatal accidents, and I am sure quite a few of them would be caused by people high on Bhang and other similar stuff.
Any thoughts?

At least its a start !!

First they'll have to get gadgets to analyse whether the breath is as a result of leaves being smoken or bh**g being comsumed or a normal cigarette. Once there are equipements maybe then we can catch those who DUI.

There are other methods to detect if you are DUI. Some frequently used methods are -

1. Walking in a straight line
2. Counting backwards from 100
3. spelling from Z to A.

Bhang need to swallowed inside either in liquid for or solid form. It is not for smoking lol:. Ganja or grass is used for smoking stuff. There are many.

Most of the normal people (without influence) cannot do it. Specially spelling from Z to A. You can test that.

Yes, its good they started prosecuting alcohol, but in India on festive occasons, other substances get abused much more than alcohol

They will get equipment only if there is lot of media noise over other types of DUI. right now media also focuses on alcohol, and other DUI which are very very rampant esp on festive occasions get ignored
I India nowadays only breath-analyzers are used

Believe it or not, I was going to type the exact same things.
But, what if I have worked over night and have just the amount of energy to get home and crash and unfortunately I get pulled over and fail the arithmetic and PT tests the officer asks me to take ?
I am not DUI, just very very tired. Last Thursday was an all nighter for me, and I was hardly able to stand for morning prayers.
Another point not all drivers are well versed with the alphabet, let alone spelling it backwards. :D
In that case all truckers will fail and land up in jail. :uncontrol
No offences meant.


Maybe. I'm not the expert on banned products. I'm not sure if anyone can be educative enough to talk about their consumption on the forum.

@Pervez,
If someone is so tired, they should sleep. Not drive. It is very careless and IMHO stupid.

Either take a cab or a friend to drive you home.

When 100% alert drivers can crash, what chance does a compromised driver have.

Guys please stay on topic. We are not talking about fatigue driving, which is a separate problem. We are talking about driving under influence of drugs as dangerous to motor control or even more dangerous than Alcohol

Yes true. I was referring to methods used (Not necessarily in India). These methods are used in US. In India these must be tweaked to suite Indian condition. Like asking a person to count backwards from 100 in his mother tongue or Hindi as the case maybe etc.etc.

Agreed, but I am trying to point out the downside of the equpiments/procedures used for detecting DUI offenders.

Most truckers use opium to stay awake during nights on highways.

There has been a considerable effort by various state police departments including Haryana by regularly checking drunk driving on major highways and towns.

Lo! Most of the drivers in India can't spell from A to Z even in the best of their mental healths!!

But, consuming drugs is anyways illegal and punishable. If one is caught driving while under influence of drugs, then he/she can get slapped with some more charges as well. But i dont think there is any handy device to test for drug abuse. Atleast a blood test or urine test is required for that.

On the other hand, dont people consume alcohol alongwith drugs? If thats the case, then checking for drunk driving itself should be a deterrant. Or atleast a start!

It would be giving more phillipe to the Police & pursuing Inspector raj. Would lead to more public harassment & give more chances to the police to fleece people.

If police was to do its job in a just way, then such additions are welcome but unfortunately that's not the case.

how ironic! any mention of alcohol is instantly sanitized on the forum but now there is a whole thread that talks about DUI.