T2007 – Seat t le, Washingt on Frequency of illegal drugs and medicines in a Norwegian road-side survey Per T Normann *1 , Bjørg S Pettersen 1 , Terje Assum 2 , Unni Johansen 1 , Lena Krisoffersen 1 , Hallvard Gjerde 1 , Elisabeth Øiestad 1 , Asbjørg S Christophersen 1 , and Jørg Mørland 1 1 Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Division of Forensic Toxicology and Drug Abuse, Oslo, Norway; 2 Institute of Transport Economics – TØI, Oslo, Norway Background Roadside surveys of the occurrence of alcohol among normal drivers have been performed both in Norway and in other countries. The Norwegian study i in 1982 included about 72,000 drivers and showed that about 0.2 % of the overall driving population was driving with a blood alcohol concentration above 0.5 g/kg. The occurrence of medicinal and illegal drugs among ordinary drivers have only been studied in a limited number of studies ii,iii,iv . Many of these studies had only a limited number of participating drivers and also the analytical programme was limited. Good survey data are needed for many reasons. They give a good indication of how frequent a combination of drug use and driving is in general among the driving population. Such data is mandatory for good planning of traffic safety programs. On world basis traffic accidents are one of the major causes to accidents in general and fatal accidents in special. Therefore, The World Health Organization (WHO) v has put prevention of traffic accidents as one of its main goals. Knowledge about drug use among both ordinary drivers and drivers involved in traffic accidents is needed to calculate the relative risk for cause of an accident. In recent years high quality methods to analyse drugs in saliva have been published. Saliva samples give a non-invasive access to biological samples with the possibility to analyse a high number of compounds in a small sample volume. The aim of this study was to investigate the use of alcohol, illegal drugs and psychoactive medicines among ordinary drivers. Methods About 10,000 randomly selected drivers were included during a 12-month period in the South- East part of Norway. The drivers were informed before they gave an informed consent to participate anonymously in the study. The saliva samples were analysed by LC/MS/MS vi for the use of morphine, heroin, codeine, methadone, buprenorphine, amphetamine, metamphetamine, MDMA, MDA, MDEA, cocaine, THC, LSD, diazepam, flunitrazepam, clonazepam, nitrazepam, oxazepam, alprazolam, lorazepam, bromazepam, phenazepam, zopiclone, zolpidem, carisoprodol, meprobamate and some metabolites. Alcohol was determined spectrophotometrically by using alcohol dehydrogenase vii . The data collection areas were selected by the Norwegian Institute of Transport Economics. At each data collection point the vehicles to be included in the project was randomly pulled up by the Central Mobile Police Force. After the police control was finished, the drivers were asked to participate in an anonymous volunteer road-side survey carried out by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.