Policing persons under the influence of drugs and alcohol in Vancouver, British Columbia

The assumption of the multi-disciplinary research team lead by Professor Tim Stockwell, Director of CARBC and Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Victoria, after an extensive review of the monitoring literature, was that no single method for monitoring poly-drug use provided valid estimates of the distribution and consumption of alcohol and drugs in British Columbia. [...] As well as the type of substance and the reason for contact, the VPD was interested in the presence and degree of violence officers experienced during their contacts with the public. [...] Officers were also instructed that, at the end of their shift, they should indicate on the front of the envelope containing their contact cards the total number of substance related contacts and the total number of contacts overall (including substance and non-substance related) they had in the shift as this would allow for the calculation of the proportion of contacts in a typical shift that invo [...] Because this phase was a pre-test only designed to assess the reliability concerns regarding the officers filling out the cards in the field, complete data was not collected on the total number of contacts officers had during the shift. [...] However, when based on the analysis of the individual 936 cards, at the time of the police contact, nearly three-quarters of the individuals (71 per cent) were identified as being under the influence of alcohol, while nearly one-third (31 per cent) were coded as under the influence of drugs.