The staggering theory as to why we aren’t testing drivers for cocaine

A Greens MP says drivers haven’t been tested for cocaine because cocaine users and their parents are too influential.

Ross and John were this morning surprised to learn Victorian police, along with many other jurisdictions, aren’t testing for the drug.

David Shoebridge, a Greens MP who has led the successful push for cocaine tests in NSW, said NSW testing kits were capable of detecting cocaine, but weren’t being used.

Click PLAY to hear the David Shoebridge interview

“Here in NSW I think the reason they don’t test for cocaine, or haven’t traditionally, is because people who use cocaine are much more influential, as a general rule,” he told 3AW Breakfast.

“They basically have to turn the cocaine setting off on the machine.

“They dumb them down to only test for three drugs (cannabis, MDMA and methamphetamine).”

But Victoria Police said there’s no ‘cocaine setting’ on Victorian tests.

But Superintendent John Fitzpatrick did confirm cocaine wasn’t being tested.

He told Ross and John it was because cocaine isn’t a major factor in the road toll.

“What the evidence says is that cocaine has been (a factor) in less than one per cent of road trauma,” he said.

Click PLAY to hear more from John Fitzpatrick