Drivers who are pulled over by police and refuse a drug test could lose their licences for three months. Drivers who are pulled over by police and refuse a drug test could lose their licences for three months. (CBC)

An Alberta law has been expanded to make it illegal for drivers to refuse a drug impairment test.

Effective on Thursday, any motorist suspected of driving under the influence of drugs who declines a police request to take a drug test could have his driver's licence suspended for three months.

The Alberta Administrative Licence Suspension program used to only include drivers who refused to provide a breath sample in cases of suspected alcohol impairment. The rule now includes drug impairment as well.

Alberta officials believe the province is the first to bring in the automatic suspensions.

Last year, 22 per cent of drivers involved in fatal collisions in Alberta were impaired, according to provincial statistics. Drugs were involved in one per cent of the crashes, but police say the number is rising.

"We are certainly seeing an increase in the amount of people that we are charging for drug-impaired driving," said Sgt. Rick Butler of the Calgary Police Service traffic section.

Trained officers conduct drug tests

The drug tests are different from the roadside examinations given for people suspected of drunk driving. Motorists are taken to a local police station for a one-hour, 12-step evaluation by a specially trained officer.

"It involves blood pressure. It involves eye dilation, pupil dilation. It involves doing actually a breath test to rule out alcohol as the cause, and then at the end of which there's also a urine analysis that's completed," explained Butler.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which supports the new rule, said more young people likely use drugs instead of alcohol when they're driving because they think they won't get caught.

"They were probably free as a bird, possibly to get through a checkstop or that kind of thing, because an officer didn't have authority to do anything more than suspect," said Denise Dubyk, who lost her son-in-law to a drunk driver in 2000 and is also the spokeswoman for MADD's Calgary chapter.