State witnesses persistent drug-impaired driving; DRE program, toxicology limits complicate prosecutions

Trisha Conti, director of the Vermont Forensic Laboratory, told the Judiciary Committee on Jan. 28 that toxicology and breath-testing data show drug-impaired and polysubstance driving have become more common and harder to prosecute.

“An average alcohol concentration is a 0.14,” Conti said, noting the laboratory receives samples for impaired-driving cases and that many impaired drivers test nearly double the legal alcohol limit. Conti said the lab receives blood samples for alcohol and drug testing and that “we receive anywhere from 5 to 800 samples a year” for analysis. She described a shift in lab findings from primarily cannabis and benzodiazepines to more cases with opiates and stimulants, and said “upwards of like over 50% of the cases we see have those drugs in them” when discussing opioids and cocaine appearing in samples.

The lab director said most drug-positive cases are polysubstance: “it's unusual to have only one substance on board. What's actually more common is that folks have either two to three categories of drugs on board,” a pattern she linked to the state’s illegal-drug market.

John Flanagan, who manages Vermont’s DRE program at the Vermont Criminal Justice Council, said Vermont has 43 certified DRE officers and that the program is called out roughly 400 times a year, with a roughly 75% response rate to those calls. “The top three drug categories, as of now, are narcotic analgesics, cannabis, and central nervous system stimulants,” Flanagan…