Canada’s penalties for impaired driving

Canada’s Department of Justice has established legal penalties for people convicted of impaired driving . If convicted of your first offence of alcohol impaired driving at or over . 08 within two hours of driving, the mandatory minimum penalty is a $1,000 fine .

Impaired Driving

The Criminal Code prohibits driving while impaired to any degree by drugs, alcohol, or a combination of both. Penalties for this offence range from a mandatory minimum fine to life imprisonment, depending on the severity of the offence.

Prohibited Levels

In addition to the offence of impaired driving , there are separate offences of having specified prohibited levels of alcohol, cannabis or certain other drugs in the blood within two hours of driving. Penalties range from fines to life imprisonment, depending on the severity of the offence.

Alcohol

The prohibited blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) is 80 milligrams or more (mg) of alcohol per 100 millilitres (ml) of blood.

Cannabis (THC)

There are two prohibited levels for THC, the primary psychoactive component of cannabis: it is a less serious offence to have between 2 nanograms (ng) and 5 ng of THC per ml of blood. It is a more serious offence to have 5 ng of THC or more per ml of blood.

Combination of alcohol and cannabis

The prohibited levels of alcohol and cannabis, when found in combination, is 50mg or more of alcohol per 100ml blood and 2.5 ng or more of THC per ml of blood.

Other drugs

Having any detectable amount of LSD, psilocybin, psilocin (“magic mushrooms”), ketamine, PCP, cocaine, methamphetamine or 6-mam (a metabolite of heroin) in your system within two hours of driving is also prohibited.

The prohibited level for GHB is 5mg or more per litre of blood, since the body can naturally produce low levels of this drug.