NSW looks at driver monitoring tech for medicinal cannabis users

Legalise Cannabis NSW lead candidate Jeremy Buckingham, who is close to winning a seat in the NSW upper house, is calling for trials to measure driver impairment to ensure those prescribed medicinal cannabis aren’t discriminated against for taking their medication.

One trial may include using driver monitoring technology, which assesses a driver’s fatigue and distraction by scanning the face and eyes.

Currently, it is against the law in NSW for a person to drive with any amount of THC – a psychoactive component of cannabis – present in their body, even if it is prescribed. THC causes impairment for anywhere between two and eight hours but can show up in roadside drug tests for up to three days. Other prescription drugs do not show up in roadside testing.

Richard Francis sources his cannabis from Astrid Dispensary and believes the drug driving laws are unfair. Credit: Natalie Grono

“[Driving law reform] will be the first cab off the rank,” Buckingham said. “It’s a massive disincentive for people to take the medicine that they legally can take when they’re not driving impaired in any way, shape, or form, and it’s a massive disincentive for doctors to prescribe it.”

Founding chair of Swinburne University’s working group for Driver Monitoring Systems, Amie Hayley, said it was difficult to infer impairment by the presence of THC in saliva. Experimental research, she said, has shown that patients don’t display driving impairment that would usually be associated with recreational cannabis use. “[Research] is disentangling the idea that the presence of THC is automatically correlated to impairment,” she said.

Her research has been looking at how eye-tracking technology in cars, known as a Driver Monitoring Systems, could be used to monitor the impact of different drugs and different dosages, to see when someone may be impaired versus just having the drugs in their system.

Driver Monitoring Systems will be made mandatory in vehicles sold in the European Union from 2024. The technology alerts the driver when their blinking patterns, eye movements and head positions change. If the monitoring system senses someone has fallen unconscious, the car will slow and pull over, with emergency services notified.

The number of people accessing medicinal cannabis has grown exponentially since it was legalised in 2016 with more than 345,000 Australians approved to use the medicine but head of patient advocacy and engagement at Astrid Cannabis Dispensary in Byron Bay said the driving laws were deterring people from accessing their medication. “We see it on a weekly basis,” she said. Astrid Dispensary has gained 18,000 cannabis patients in the two years since it opened.

“We get patients whose entire livelihood is dependent on using their medication and being able to drive ... It’s impacted patients from being able to maintain their employment. That loss of income has a domino effect,” she said, which is especially hard for patients using cannabis for psychological conditions.

Head of Patient Advocacy and Engagement Bee Mohamed said education and consultancy are important for new cannabis users. Credit: Natalie Grono

It was an incredibly tough period for Michael, who lives in Sydney and asked for his surname to be withheld, when he had his licence suspended for six months in 2021 after THC showed up in a roadside drug test. He has been prescribed cannabis for PTSD, anxiety, insomnia and chronic back pain and had smoked THC cannabis about eight hours before driving. Michael said he was in no way impaired and was following his doctors’ directions. “The impact was substantial. I [have] extreme family emergencies 24/7 and not having a licence just removes you from being able to do all the things that are necessary,” he said. “It’s unfair.”

Byron Bay resident Richard Francis, who is prescribed medicinal cannabis for anxiety, said he’s confident using his prescribed medication and driving – but fears undergoing roadside drug tests. “People are allowed to have two standard drinks and drive, yet I’m not allowed to take my prescribed medicine?” he said.

Melbourne-based mother-of-two Alice Davy uses CBD oil during the day and THC at night to help with multiple sclerosis and stage four endometriosis. By the time she wakes up to drive her children to school, she said, she’s “not impaired at all”.

Mother-of-two Alice Davy said she feels safer driving while using prescription cannabis than other pharmaceuticals.

Before being prescribed cannabis, she wouldn’t drive because of the range of pharmaceuticals she was taking. “I’m more worried about getting in the car days after taking valium because you wake up foggy,” she said. Now, she drives between Melbourne and regional NSW to visit family and seek MS treatment. “That wouldn’t have been possible on all the other drugs,” she said. “Changing these laws is a no-brainer.”

Former Lismore magistrate David Heilpern said NSW’s hard stance on drug driving had done nothing to decrease road deaths. He stepped down from the courts in 2020 in protest of the cannabis drug driving laws. In 2019, NSW police were given the power to impose a three-month licence suspension on anyone with THC in their system, along with a fine of $587.

“Why should we even think for a moment that we need a special rule just because the drug was once an illicit drug?” he said. “There’s no reason for it to be specially treated.”

But acting deputy secretary for safety, environment and regulation at Transport for NSW Sally Webb said the laws were necessary to protect other drivers.

“THC can affect cognitive and motor skills necessary for safe driving, such as attention, judgment, memory, vision and co-ordination,” she said. “These rules are in place to discourage people from driving when they are under influence to reduce the risk of a fatal crash and maintain the safety of all road users.”

Webb said the department was continuing “to monitor developments in vehicle technologies that support road safety, including the Driver Monitoring System technology”. The NSW government is monitoring drug-driving research and developments relevant to drug-driving policy as part of the 2026 Road Safety Action Plan.