N.W.T., Yukon RCMP officers test their breathalyzer skills by getting drunk

Some RCMP officers have been drinking on the job — with their supervisors watching — as part of hands-on training to improve their skills administering breathalyzer tests. 

Officers testifying in court must prove they administered the tests correctly, followed procedure and documented the encounter with standard notes. 

The police say this training will make them more effective in collecting and presenting evidence.

"You don't want to be put in a position where you're standing recalling your college days because that doesn't go over very well," says former Vancouver police officer Steve Shaw, who helps to teach the course. "You want it to be clinical."

Shaw says the experience will help officers testify in court, by giving them a first-hand experience of different blood-alcohol levels.

Pizza and pretzels

During three days of the five-day training session, volunteer officers spend their lunch hour steadily eating pizza and pretzels as they're handed mixed drinks. 

The officers drink gin, rum and vodka in quantities sometimes exceeding 10 ounces. 

Their blood alcohol level is tested by trainees as it rises. 

Melanie Brisson, a forensic toxicology specialist with the Vancouver RCMP, says impairment begins with the first drink.

"The brain can't multi-task under the influence of alcohol which is why you'll miss different things happening in the environment," she says. "Other cars, other pedestrians, you'll miss turns in the roads, things like that. You won't observe signs and lights and signals."

Alcohol's effects vary

Part of the course is learning how alcohol's effects vary between people. 

The head of the Yukon RCMP's traffic unit, Cpl. Shawn Pollard says many drivers are grossly impaired well before reaching the point-zero-eight legal limit. 

"Everybody's a little different. Some people can have two beers and not do very well and other people have a little more and can still function quite normally," he says.

Pollard says training these 22 officers will put more police on the road who can administer breathalyzer tests. 

That could mean more tests administered, a quicker response time from police services and potentially more convictions for impaired driving.

Constable Adam Wood, who lives in Fort Good Hope, N.W.T., says stopping impaired drivers is an important priority for people in his community.

"They do like to see us enforce those laws especially because at the end of the day, they live in the community and I live in the community," Wood says. "I want to feel safe walking along the side of the road or driving a vehicle down the road." 

• Watch former Vancouver police officer Steve Shaw explain the purpose of the training to some officers.