When police pull someone over for drunk driving or drugged driving, the standard should clear for when arrest is permissible.

In cases of suspected DWI, that is where breath tests come in. As every New York City DWI defense lawyer knows, field sobriety tests are often doubtful because they lack objective standards. Such tests tend to rely overly much on the perception of the officer administering them.

Breath tests can also be untrustworthy. Breathalyzer machines can malfunction, for example, or not be calibrated right. But at least the machine is supposed to be an objective measure of blood alcohol content.

It's a different situation in cases of suspected drugged driving. As the technology currently stands, there is no specific device or instrument to assist law enforcement officers in detecting drivers who are abusing drugs.

Sen. Chuck Schumer wants to change that. He has proposed legislation in Congress that would allocate $140 million in federal funding for research on designing tests that police officers would use during traffic stops at catching drugged drivers. The funding would include grants that states could use to better train police on how to detect signs of drugged driving.

Implicit in this funding request is a tacit admission: many police officers are not properly trained on how to identify a motor vehicle driver's use of drugs. And yet, despite these concerns about training and lack of a usable detection device, drugged driving arrests have increased by 35 percent in New York State over the past decade.

Source: "Sen. Chuck Schumer says U.S. should test drivers for drug use," New York Daily News, 1-30-12