Kevin Hollingsworth, pictured while on methamphetamine (left) and recovered from addiction.
Crashing into trucks, writing off vehicles, road rage, falling asleep at traffic lights and waking up in a ditch.
These were the consequences of driving under the influence of drugs that recovered Rotorua methamphetamine addict and dealer Kevin Hollingsworth experienced during years of destructive addiction.
As the Government moves to give police roadside drug testing powers, Hollingsworth says the threat of being pulled over would not have stopped him driving drugged – but he still backs the new laws.
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has said the legislation enabling random screening of drivers would be introduced this year, and the Government would set targets for police to conduct 50,000 tests a year using oral fluid testing devices once it was in place.
A top Western Bay of Plenty road policing cop said being able to test “anytime, anywhere” would help keep drugged drivers off the road.
Hollingsworth said he started smoking cannabis when he was 6. It was the start of a slippery slope towards addiction, dealing drugs and two and a half years of prison time.
He said he was in his mid-30s before he was able to beat his methamphetamine habit and turn his life around.
Thirteen years later, he is helping other addicts do the same in his role as director of the Mana Enhancing Stop (Stop Taking Our People) Rōpū, which offers rehabilitation services to methamphetamine users.
Hollingsworth said during his addiction he would drive high “every day”, including on long journeys to score and drop off drugs.
He said he wrote off about half a dozen vehicles – including in a collision with a truck that caused his car to spin out and smash into a ute.
The accidents were caused by either falling asleep at the wheel or losing control.
He said no one was hurt but he realised now the other people involved would have been in “so much shock”. In his drugged state at the time, however, he said he did not care.
“You just drive erratically, and you drive to get where you need to get to, no matter what,” he said.
He said it enhanced the drug high as “gambling with your life” and “evading the police” affected the amygdala part of the brain, which detects danger.
“It becomes a euphoria rush.”
Hollingsworth said different drugs affected drivers in different ways and when he was on methamphetamine, he drove erratically and would fall asleep behind the wheel. On cannabis, Hollingsworth said drivers were often slow, mellow and not thinking as much.
He said he supported the Government’s moves towards roadside drug testing, even though it would not have stopped him getting behind the wheel high when he was addicted.
“You’re not really thinking about that when you’re under the influence,” Hollingsworth said.
Hollingsworth said taking steps towards controlling drug use on roads and eliminating drug harm was something he strongly believed in.
He knew there were a lot of car accidents, including some of his own, where the driver’s drugged state was not detected by authorities.
Hollingsworth said he hoped wraparound services, such as those police could refer people to through the Awhi app, would be provided to any driver with a positive test result.
Without that, he feared the approach would become more punitive than restorative.
The Awhi app was created by two Tauranga officers and frontline officers throughout New Zealand use it to direct people they encounter to services they need.
Hollingsworth said the Mana Enhancing Stop group received referrals about once a month from the app, allowing him to make contact with meth users and invite them to the programme.
NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) Crash Analysis System data revealed drugs or alcohol were a factor in 26.9% of road fatalities in Bay of Plenty region between 2014 and 2023 – higher than the national figure of 24.3%.
At the peak in 2022, 44.7% of road fatalities in the region had drugs as a contributing factor.
The spike in drug-related crash fatalities could be attributed to an increase in blood testing following a fatality, leading to more reliable reporting, the transport agency said.
Western Bay of Plenty road policing manager Senior Sergeant Wayne Hunter said police were eager to have the testing option as it would help keep drug users off the roads, and allow for more people to be tested far more quickly.
“When we started doing breath-testing many years ago, it created a type of ‘anytime, anywhere’ type thing and we are going to see the same here.”
Hunter said sometimes people would pass an alcohol breath test, yet he would have the feeling there were drugs involved – but could not do anything about it.
The Compulsory Impairment Test (CIT) police currently used to detect drug users took about an hour.
“So we don’t do them unless we are really certain this person is affected by drugs.”
The test included an eye assessment, a walk and turn, and a one-leg stand assessment. If the driver failed, they could be forbidden from driving and required to have a blood test.
Minister of Transport Brown said the legislation was a “top priority” for the Government and would be introduced this year.
“In 2022, alcohol and drugs were contributors to 200 fatal crashes on our roads and 48% of New Zealanders think drug-impaired drivers are unlikely to be caught,” Brown said.
For these reasons, the Government was committed to enacting new legislation to better detect and deter drugged driving.
Students Against Dangerous Driving general manager Donna Govorko said she strongly supported the legislation and called it a “progressive move” towards ensuring safer roads.
She said the current testing was effective at detecting impairment but limited by how many tests could be “conducted effectively to deter drivers from driving while impaired by drugs”.
DRUG ADDICTION
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Harriet Laughton is a multimedia journalist based in the Bay of Plenty.
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