Driving Drugged

FAYETTEVILLE — A growing number of drivers with slurred speech, bloodshot eyes and bad reaction times haven’t downed a single drink, according to Northwest Arkansas police.

While alcohol still accounts for the great majority of driving-while-intoxicated arrests, local authorities said they’re seeing more and more people driving under the influence of prescription drugs.

“I don’t know if people think pills are safer or it’s OK because a doctor gave it to me,” said Chris Griffin, deputy city attorney for Rogers. “Just because a doctor told you to do it doesn’t mean it’s safe.”

Police said Paul Mosley, 22, of Fayetteville was impaired by drugs June 13 when his pickup collided with a motorcycle on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Fayetteville. Ricky Lee Langham, 60, of Elkins died in the accident.

Mosley flunked a horizontal gaze nystagmus test after the accident, according to Fayetteville police. In the gaze test, an officer watches a person’s pupils for jerky reactions while the subject follows the officer’s finger across the range of vision. The test can determine whether a person is under the influence.

A Breathalyzer test to detect alcohol was negative, according to Mosley’s arrest report. Police requested a specialized drug recognition test based on the gaze test and Mosley’s bloodshot eyes, lack of coordination and slurred speech. Mosley failed, according to the arrest report. He was arrested in connection with driving while intoxicated-drugs and driving on a suspended license.

Springdale is the only city in Northwest Arkansas to track driving arrests involving prescription and illegal drugs. The city handled 29 such cases in 2007, representing 4 percent of all DWI cases. The 33 cases in 2011 represented 5 percent of all DWI cases handled by the city.

“Probably over the last three to four years, I’ve noticed a lot more cases of people mixing alcohol and prescription drugs,” said Jeff Harper, Springdale city attorney.

Springdale’s numbers dovetail with nationally reported numbers.

In 2007, a survey by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found 4 percent of weekend, nighttime drivers were under the influence of prescription drugs. In 2010, the agency found 18 percent of motorists killed in wrecks had some kind of drugs in their system.

Griffin said he believes driving-while-intoxicated arrests involving prescription drugs are on the rise based on anecdotal evidence. Rogers only tracks total driving-while-intoxicated arrests like most cities in the region and the state of Arkansas. The city does not track drug-related DWIs separately from alcohol-related arrests.

“Most folks claim they were ignorant of it, that they didn’t think it was dangerous because they had a prescription for it,” said Bud Boman, director of the drug and alcohol safety education program at Decision Point, a Bentonville rehabilitation center.

“It’s hard to say accurately what they knew or what drugs were involved, since we do pre-trial screenings and they tend to lie if they think it will help their case. It’s definitely on the rise, although it’ll probably never come close to alcohol in terms of abuse.”

Many prescriptions, particularly for sedatives and other depressants including anti-anxiety medications, muscle relaxers and pain relievers, include warnings about drowsiness, the dangers of driving and potential interactions with other medications, alcohol or drugs.

“Those warnings have been around forever, and they’re often ignored,” said John Lykins, a pharmacist at Lowell Pharmacy. “People don’t equate drowsiness with the ability to drive, but it’s essentially the same effect as alcohol, slowing down all your reactions.”

Dosage, body size, metabolism and other factors combine to determine how impaired a drug can make a driver, Lykins said.

“I’ve been told that the combination of oxycodone and Klonopin is especially bad for most people because it seems to reduce their motor skills a great deal, but the patient doesn’t usually recognize the effect,” he said. “Many of these drugs also greatly enhance the effect of alcohol in even small amounts.”

Boman said sleeping pills can also cause problems if used improperly.

“If you take one and don’t climb right into bed, you can end up in a dreamlike state, but still walking around,” he said. “One patient here took his Ambien, but doesn’t remember getting in the car. Next thing he knew, he was getting pulled over two counties away from his home.”

Stimulants, ranging from prescription antidepressants to illegal drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine, aren’t going to create as many problems for drivers, Lykins said.

Hydrocodone, Xanax and Klonopin account for the majority of DWI incidents, according to area officials. Nationwide, pharmacies received and ultimately dispensed the equivalent of 69 tons of pure oxycodone and 42 tons of pure hydrocodone in 2010, the last year for which statistics are available. That’s enough to give 40 5-mg Percocets and 24 5-mg Vicodins to every person in the United States.

The Drug Enforcement Administration records shipments from distributors to pharmacies, hospitals, practitioners and teaching institutions. The agency does not keep track of how much individual patients receive.

Another explanation for the apparent increase in arrests is more officers are conducting drug recognition exams. The exams, which can only be performed by certified officers, measure body temperature, pulse rate and pupil size among other factors to determine exactly what kind of drug might be influencing a person.

Between Jan. 1, 2010, and May 1, 2012, 1,263 drug recognition tests were performed across the state, according to the Criminal Justice Institute in Little Rock. Of those, 426 were performed in Washington and Benton counties.

Fayetteville has 13 police officers certified to perform the exams, more than any other police department in Arkansas. Springdale is a close second with 10 certified officers.

Sgt. Carey Hartsfield of the Fayetteville Police Department said he doesn’t necessarily believe more people are driving under the influence of prescription drugs than in years past, just there are more officers on the roads now who can spot the signs of those drugs.

“Officers are getting better at recognizing when these people are under the influences of drugs and call” for an exam, said Hartsfield, who’s been certified in drug exams for 16 years and trains other area officers.

When someone is under the influence of alcohol, a Breathalyzer test can reliably tell police if the blood-alcohol content is above the legal limit of 0.08. The test for determining if someone is under the influence of drugs is not as clear cut.

The more subjective nature of drug recognition exams can make it more difficult to get a conviction in cases involving drugs.

“Having that 0.08 number goes a long way toward getting a conviction,” said Casey Jones, prosecutor for the city of Fayetteville.

Last month, a Fayetteville woman pleaded guilty to negligent homicide and battery, but prosecutors dropped a DWI-drugs charge. Tests showed Jo Jackson had a prescription sleeping pill in her system after a September 2011 accident on Joyce Boulevard where she hit and killed Jackie Luper, a city road department employee working alongside the street, according to Fayetteville police. Two other workers were injured.

Prosecutors decided it would have been hard to prove she was impaired at the time of the accident. Jackson told the court she accidentally took a sleeping pill instead of her blood pressure medication that morning. She was sentenced to six months in jail.

Mosley, the driver involved in the accident earlier this month, goes to court July 20 for arraignment and formal charges.