As community and political heavyweights prepare to sit down today for an ice roundtable, The Leader has obtained new figures showing one in four drivers across the Oxley command have tested positive for illegal substances like methamphetamine and cannabis.

The new drug-driving detection technology was introduced in the Oxley area in September last year, and the number of locals caught under the influence has almost doubled since November, when The Leader revealed one in seven drivers were testing positive for illegal substances.

“It’s a real black mark for Tamworth,” Acting Magistrate Mal MacPherson told Tamworth Local Court yesterday as more offenders fronted court, pleading guilty to the offence of driving a vehicle with an illicit drug present in their blood. 

According to the new data, 580 roadside drug tests have been conducted since September 25, 2015, when new technology was implemented in the Oxley command, with a quarter of those recording a positive reading for an illicit drug up to the new year.

“The statistics galvanise the position of Oxley Local Area Command in that we know there is a significant drug problem within our community,” Oxley Chief Inspector Jeff Budd told The Leader.

“The community should hold fears about this detection rate. When random breath-testing was introduced, and indeed throughout the history of that, the incidents of drink-drivers compared to this alarming drug-driving data is frightening.”

Today, Acting Premier Troy Grant will sit down with Tamworth MP Kevin Anderson, police and emergency service representatives and community stakeholders to discuss the growing ice problem impacting the area.

But, already, the drug-driving figures paint a bleak picture, according to the courts. 

“It may be systematic of a bigger problem,” Acting Magistrate MacPherson told the court yesterday in a sentencing hearing.

Yesterday, police prosecutor Sergeant Alix Thom said the court could expect to see a surge in drug-driving cases in the weeks and months to come.

“Your Honour will see 145 offences, that’s how many were detected in that time,” she said.

After testing positive in a roadside random drug test, drivers are arrested and taken to a nearby police station for a further test and issued an automatic flash-ban – a 24-hour licence suspension.

The sample is then sent away to a laboratory for forensic analysis, and will trigger a charge in court if the result tests positive for illicit drugs. 

“While it’s not alcohol, it is still dangerous,” Acting Magistrate MacPherson said. “Hopefully the message gets out there.”