Drugs that Impair Safe Driving; Request for Comments |
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Jeff Michael
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
17 July 2018
[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 137 (Tuesday, July 17, 2018)]
[Notices]
[Pages 33305-33306]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2018-15209]
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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
[Docket No. NHTSA-2018-XXXX]
Drugs that Impair Safe Driving; Request for Comments
AGENCY: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA),
Department of Transportation (DOT).
ACTION: Request for comment.
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SUMMARY: NHTSA is reviewing the literature on drug use and driving with
the aim of updating its Drugs and Human Performance Fact Sheets that
are used by the criminal justice community and others as they address
drug-impaired driving. The current edition of the Fact Sheets was
released in 2004 and included information on the following drugs:
Carisoprodol, cocaine, dextromethorphan, diazepam, diphenhydramine,
gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB), ketamine, lysergic acid diethylamide
(LSD), marijuana, methadone, methamphetamine,
methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), morphine, phencyclidine (PCP),
toluene, and zolpidem. NHTSA welcomes comments and suggestions for
additional drugs to be considered for inclusion in the new edition of
the Fact Sheets as well as relevant research studies that have become
available since 2004 that could be included in the updated fact sheets.
To the extent possible, such comments and suggestions should be
accompanied by information about the drug, including the extent of its
use, its pharmacology and pharmodynamics, and how impairing it is for
driving, along with references.
DATES: Interested parties are invited to submit comments and
suggestions on or before September 1, 2018.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: If you have questions about this
request for comment, please contact Richard Compton at
NHTSAdruginfo@dot.gov or 202-366-2699.
Written Comments: Written statements and supporting information
submitted during the comment period will be considered. Please submit
all written comments no later than September 1, 2018, by any of the
following methods:
Federal Rulemaking Portal: Go to http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the online instructions for submitting
comments.
Mail: Docket Management Facility: U.S. Department of
Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building Ground Floor,
Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001.
Hand Delivery or Courier: 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West
Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001, between
9 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday, except Federal Holidays.
Fax: 202-366-1767.
Instructions: All submissions must include the agency name and
docket number. Note that all comments received will be posted without
change to http://www.regulations.gov, including any personal
information provided. Please see the Privacy Act discussion below.
Docket: For access to the docket go to http://www.regulations.gov
at any time or to 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Ground
Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.,
Monday through Friday, except Federal Holidays. Telephone: 202-366-
9826.
Privacy Act: Anyone is able to search the electronic form of all
comments received into any of our dockets by the name of the individual
submitting the comment (or signing the comment, if submitted on behalf
of an association, business, labor union, etc.). You may review DOT's
complete Privacy Act Statement in the Federal Register published on
April 11, 2000 (Volume 65, Number 70; Pages 19477-78), or you may visit
http://www.regulations.gov/privacy.html.
Confidential Business Information: If you wish to submit any
information under a claim of confidentiality, you should submit three
copies of your
[[Page 33306]]
complete submission, including the information you claim to be
confidential business information, to the Chief Counsel, NHTSA, 1200
New Jersey Ave. SE, W41-326, Washington DC 20590. In addition, you
should submit two copies, from which you have deleted the claimed
confidential business information, to Docket Management at the address
given above. When you send a comment containing information claimed to
be confidential business information, you should submit a cover letter
setting forth the information specified in our confidential business
information regulation (49 CFR part 512).
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Background
In the early 2000s, NHTSA convened a panel of international experts
on drug-impaired driving to review developments in the field of drugs
and human performance and to identify the specific effects that both
high priority illicit and prescription drugs have on driving. The
experts represented the fields of psychopharmacology, behavioral
psychology, drug chemistry, forensic toxicology, medicine, and law
enforcement. That effort resulted in the publication of a document
entitled Drugs and Human Performance Fact Sheets (DOT HS 809 725) in
June 2004.
Each Fact Sheet covered one of the selected sixteen drugs that
impair driving. The selected drugs included over-the-counter
medications such as dextromethorphan and diphenhydramine; prescription
medications such as carisoprodol, diazepam, and zolpidem; and abused
and/or illegal drugs such as cocaine, GHB, ketamine, LSD, marijuana,
methadone, methamphetamine, MDMA, morphine, PCP, and toluene. Each
individual drug Fact Sheet covered information regarding drug
chemistry, usage and dosage information, pharmacology, drug effects,
effects on driving, drug evaluation and classification, and the panel's
assessment of driving risks. More specifically, the Fact Sheets
provided details on the physical description of the drug, synonyms, and
pharmaceutical or illicit sources; medical and recreational uses,
recommended and abused doses, typical routes of administration, and
potency and purity; mechanism of drug action and major receptor sites;
drug absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination data; blood
and urine concentrations; psychological and physiological effects, and
drug interactions; drug effects on psychomotor performance effects;
driving simulator and epidemiology studies; and drug recognition
evaluation profiles. Each Fact Sheet concludes with general statements
about the drugs' ability to impair driving performance. A list of key
references and recommended reading was also provided for each drug.
Since 2004, new research on these and other impairing drugs has
become available. As a result, NHTSA plans to evaluate whether
additional drugs that impair driving should be included in the Fact
Sheets and to add them as appropriate, as well as to update information
on the effects of the sixteen aforementioned drugs on driving. NHTSA
will base the revised Fact Sheets on the state of current scientific
knowledge. The agency intends to design the revised Fact Sheets to
continue to provide practical guidance to toxicologists,
pharmacologists, law enforcement officers, attorneys, and the general
public to use in the evaluation of future cases.
In order to assist on the development of the new edition of the
Fact Sheets, NHTSA invites comments and suggestions from the general
public on additional drugs as well as relevant research studies that
have become available since 2004 that could be included in the updated
fact sheets. To the extent possible, such comments and suggestions
should be accompanied by information about the drug, including the
extent of its use, its pharmacology and pharmodynamics, and how
impairing it is for driving, along with references.
Authority: 44 U.S.C. Section 3506(c)(2)(A).
Issued in Washington, DC, on July 12, 2018.
Jeff Michael,
Associate Administrator, Research and Program Development.
[FR Doc. 2018-15209 Filed 7-16-18; 8:45 am]
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