Drug Related DUI Lawyer in Toronto: Cannabis and Drug Impaired Driving Charges

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A drug related DUI in Canada is a charge under section 320.14 of the Criminal Code where the substance in question is a drug rather than alcohol. There is more than one of them. Paragraph (1)(a) is the impairment offence and needs no number. Paragraph (1)(c) and subsection (4) are per se offences, made out by a blood drug concentration set by regulation whether or not anyone can show that you drove badly. Paragraph (1)(d) catches a driver who is under both individual limits and over a combined one. Which of those you are facing decides nearly everything about the case, and it usually turns on a figure produced in a laboratory weeks after the arrest.

By Fadi Matthew Kazandji, Founding Partner, Kazandji Law. Updated July 2026.

Why were you pulled over, and did the officer need a reason?

Every drug driving prosecution is a chain, and the first link is the stop. Follow the chain properly and you get to the number the Crown wants to rely on. Break a link early and everything downstream of it is in play.

Police powers to stop vehicles on a public highway are broad, and a driver who is pulled over on a road is unlikely to get very far arguing that the officer needed a specific reason. The picture changes once the vehicle leaves the road.

In R v McColman, 2023 SCC 8, the Supreme Court of Canada dealt with a random sobriety stop carried out after the driver had turned into a private driveway. The Court held that neither the provincial highway traffic legislation the officers relied on nor the common law authorised a random sobriety stop on private property, and that the stop breached section 9 of the Charter.

Then read the rest of the judgment, because this is where a lot of online commentary stops. The Court went on to the exclusion analysis and admitted the evidence, restoring the conviction. So a Charter breach is not a light switch. Establishing the breach is the first argument. Persuading a court that the administration of justice would be brought into disrepute by admitting what the breach produced is a second and separate one.

Practically, this means the location of the stop belongs in your instructions on day one. Where were you when the roof lights came on? On the road, in a parking lot, in your own driveway, on private property behind a gate? Those facts stop being retrievable within weeks, and they can matter more than anything that happened afterwards.

What lets an officer demand a saliva sample at the roadside?

Section 320.27(1) is the source of the power, and paragraph (c) is the drug limb of it. Where a peace officer has reasonable grounds to suspect that a person has a drug in their body and that the person operated a conveyance within the preceding three hours, the officer may demand that the person immediately provide the samples of a bodily substance that, in the officer's opinion, are necessary to enable a proper analysis by approved drug screening equipment, and accompany the officer for that purpose.

Three things in that sentence do real work.

• Reasonable grounds to suspect. This is a lower standard than belief, but it is not nothing. It has to be grounded in something the officer can articulate, and it has to exist at the moment the demand is made. Grounds assembled later, out of what the swab eventually showed, are grounds in hindsight.
• Within the preceding three hours. Operation has to fall inside that window. In a case where the driver had been parked for a long period, or where the timeline is built on an assumption about when driving stopped, this is worth pressing.
• Immediately. The word governs the driver and it constrains the officer too, since a demand for an immediate sample presupposes that the officer is in a position to take one.

What the subsection does not require is any evidence of bad driving. A suspicion that a drug is in the body is enough for the swab. That is precisely why the swab result, standing alone, proves so little.

What the roadside drug screener actually is, and what it cannot tell anyone

There are exactly two approved systems in Canada, and they are named in the Approved Drug Screening Equipment Order, SOR/2018-179. Section 1 approves:

• a Dräger DrugTest 5000 and a Dräger DrugTest 5000 STK-CA, when used together; and
• a SoToxa, an Abbott SoToxa Test Cartridge and an Abbott SoToxa Oral Fluid Collection Device, when used together.

Those last three words are not decoration. Section 320.11 defines approved drug screening equipment as equipment approved by the Attorney General of Canada under paragraph 320.39(b). The approval given is for the named components used together. Where the components used at the roadside do not match the combination in the Order, there is a real question whether what was used was approved drug screening equipment within the meaning of the Criminal Code at all.

That distinction gets lost constantly in news coverage and in the way results are described to drivers at the roadside. If you were told at the side of the road that you had failed a drug test, what you actually failed was a screen, and the case against you still has to be built out of what came afterwards.

Why there is mandatory breath screening but no mandatory drug screening

This asymmetry sits in plain sight in the statute and almost nobody points it out.

Section 320.27(2) creates mandatory alcohol screening. Where a peace officer has an approved screening device in their possession, the officer may demand a breath sample in the course of a lawful exercise of powers, and no suspicion about alcohol is needed at all. That is why a driver stopped at a spot check can be required to blow without the officer having noticed anything.

There is no equivalent for drugs. The mandatory screening power is written for breath and for an approved screening device, which is the alcohol instrument. A demand for oral fluid still has to be made under section 320.27(1)(c), and that paragraph still requires reasonable grounds to suspect a drug in the body and operation within the preceding three hours.

It follows that a swab demand made simply because a driver was stopped, or because of the time of night, or because of who was in the car, is a demand worth challenging. So is one where the stated grounds appear for the first time in a report written after the screen came back positive.

From the roadside to the station: what turns suspicion into an arrest

The next link in the chain is a step up in the legal standard, and it happens at the moment the officer forms a belief rather than a suspicion.

Section 320.28(2) allows an officer with reasonable grounds to believe that a person committed an offence under section 320.14(1)(a), (1)(c), (1)(d) or (4) to demand that the person submit as soon as practicable to an evaluation conducted by an evaluating officer, and to demand samples of blood. That is the doorway between the roadside and everything that follows.

The evaluation itself is a prescribed procedure conducted by a certified drug recognition expert, and it matters most in cases where there is no per se number to rely on. We set out the qualification requirement and the full evaluation sequence on our page about driving under the influence of prescription medication, which is where that route usually leads.

For a cannabis or street drug file the more common path runs straight to blood, because a per se offence needs a laboratory figure and nothing else will do. So the question on this link of the chain is a narrow one: what did the officer actually have, at the time of the demand, that raised suspicion to belief? A positive oral fluid screen is part of the answer. On its own it is rarely the whole of it, and the case law on grounds is not satisfied by a device result being treated as though it settled the matter.

The blood sample: who is allowed to take it, and under what conditions

Blood is not like breath. Parliament put conditions on who may take it and on the circumstances in which it may be taken, and those conditions are elements of the Crown case rather than housekeeping.

Section 320.28(6) provides that samples of blood may be taken only by a qualified medical practitioner or a qualified technician, and only if that person is satisfied that taking the samples would not endanger the person's life or health. Section 320.28(7) requires that a blood sample be received into an approved container that is then sealed.

Each of those is a fact that has to be established. Who took the sample and on what qualification. Whether that person turned their mind to the health question. What container was used and whether it was an approved one. Whether it was sealed, when, and by whom. In a case that will be decided by a single number, the integrity of the vial that produced the number is not a technicality. It is the case.

The same is true of what happens to the sample after it leaves the room. Where it went, who handled it, how it was stored, and how long it sat before analysis are all part of the record, and the disclosure should show them. Where the continuity record has holes in it, the weight of the certificate is affected even if the analysis itself was performed properly.

Section 320.31(2) then gives the analyst's result its statutory force: it is proof of the blood drug concentration at the time the sample was taken, in the absence of evidence tending to show that the analysis was performed improperly. Section 320.31(3) narrows the routes to challenge it, by providing that evidence of the amount consumed, of absorption or elimination rates, or of a calculation based on those, does not amount to evidence that the analysis was performed improperly.

What the lab measures: 2, 2.5 and 5 nanograms, and every other drug on the list

The per se offences only work because a regulation supplies the numbers. That regulation is the Blood Drug Concentration Regulations, SOR/2018-148, and it is short enough to reproduce in full.

Section 1 sets the concentration for the summary offence in section 320.14(4): tetrahydrocannabinol at 2 nanograms per millilitre of blood. Section 2 sets the concentrations for the hybrid offence in section 320.14(1)(c):

Section 3 then sets the combined figures for section 320.14(1)(d): 50 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood together with 2.5 nanograms of THC per millilitre of blood.

Read the table for what it really says. For eight of the ten substances the threshold is any detectable level. There is no tolerance band, no margin, and no legal quantity. Detection is the offence. Only THC and GHB have a numeric floor to argue about, which is why cannabis cases and every other drug case behave so differently in practice.

Note also what is absent. Most prescription medications do not appear anywhere in the regulation, so there is no per se route for them and the Crown must prove impairment the hard way. That is a different kind of case and we deal with it separately in our guide to impaired driving on prescription medication. For the wider law on cannabis possession and sale, see cannabis laws in Canada, and for authorised medical cannabis see medical marijuana and DUI charges in Ontario.

Two nanograms or five: how half a nanogram changes the whole case

Between 2 and 5 nanograms of THC you are facing one offence. At 5 you are facing a different one, and the gap between them is enormous.

Half a nanogram of measured difference moves a case from a summary offence with a thousand dollar ceiling and a discretionary prohibition to a hybrid offence with a thousand dollar floor, a ten year indictable ceiling, a mandatory prohibition and the prospect of custody on a second conviction.

It is also worth knowing that the lower band is its own offence rather than a lesser included version of the higher one, with its own subsection, its own penalty provision and its own prohibition rule. That structure matters when positions are being taken on a file.

Under the limit on both and still charged: the combined alcohol and cannabis offence

This is the offence that catches careful people, and it is barely discussed anywhere.

Section 320.14(1)(d) makes it an offence to have, within two hours after ceasing to operate a conveyance, a blood alcohol concentration and a blood drug concentration that equal or exceed the concentrations prescribed by regulation for instances where alcohol and that drug are combined. Section 3 of SOR/2018-148 sets those combined figures at 50 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood together with 2.5 nanograms of THC per millilitre.

Work through what that means. A driver at 60 milligrams of alcohol is below the familiar 80 milligram threshold. The same driver at 3 nanograms of THC is below the 5 nanogram threshold for the hybrid cannabis offence. Neither figure on its own supports a per se charge. Together they sit squarely inside paragraph (1)(d).

And paragraph (1)(d) is a section 320.14(1) offence, which means the section 320.19(1) minimums apply and the mandatory prohibition under section 320.24(1) and (2) applies. A person who was under both individual limits is exposed to the same penalty structure as a driver well over one of them.

The statutory exception in section 320.14(7) is narrow. It protects a person who consumed the alcohol or the drug after ceasing to operate and who then had no reasonable expectation of being required to provide a sample. It is a post driving provision, and it does not help anyone who simply misjudged how a glass of wine and cannabis earlier in the evening would combine.

The two hour window, and the question of what you had in you while driving

Here is a feature of the per se offences that almost nobody explains to the person charged.

Sections 320.14(1)(c), 320.14(1)(d) and 320.14(4) are not defined by what was in your blood while you were driving. Each of them is defined by a concentration measured within two hours after you ceased to operate the conveyance. And section 320.31(2) gives the analyst's result its force as proof of the concentration at the time the sample was taken, which is later again.

So the statute is working with two moments that are not the moment of driving. That is a deliberate legislative choice and it is not open to argument. What is worth noticing is how Parliament handled the same problem for alcohol.

What follows from it is a question of proof rather than a slogan. Where the Crown relies on a per se paragraph, its case is about a measured concentration inside a statutory window, and the timing evidence that puts the sample inside that window has to be established like anything else. When did operation cease? What time was the demand made? What time was the sample taken? Those entries in the notes and on the certificate carry more weight in this kind of case than in almost any other.

Where the charge is a paragraph (1)(a) impairment charge instead, the analysis is different again, because there the Crown must prove impairment of the ability to operate at the time of driving on the whole of the evidence.

What refusing the swab or the blood actually costs

Refusing does not make the problem go away. It replaces it with a different charge that carries a heavier statutory floor.

Section 320.15(1) makes it an offence to fail or refuse, without reasonable excuse, to comply with a demand made under section 320.27 or section 320.28, knowing that the demand has been made. Section 320.19(4) then fixes a minimum fine of $2,000 for a first refusal, against the $1,000 minimum that attaches to a first impaired driving conviction.

There is, though, a genuine limit on the refusal offence, and it comes from R v Breault, 2023 SCC 9. The Supreme Court held that a person cannot be criminally liable for refusing to comply with a demand that it was not actually possible to comply with, because the officer did not have the device available. The immediacy requirement, the Court held, binds the officer as much as the driver: an officer who makes an immediate demand must be in a position to administer the test.

Breault was decided on the wording of the former provision, which used the word forthwith, while section 320.27(1) now uses the word immediately. The reasoning transfers on its face, and it is an argument available on the current wording rather than a point already decided under the new numbering. In a drug case it has obvious application where the demand was made before the approved drug screening equipment was on scene.

One more thing worth saying plainly. Refusing does not protect your licence. Ontario treats a failure or refusal at the roadside the same way it treats a poor performance on a drug recognition evaluation, which brings us to the last link in the chain.

Your licence: the 90 days that start before a judge ever sees the file

The sample has now travelled from the roadside to a laboratory to a courtroom. Its last stop is a Ministry of Transportation file, and that part of the story usually begins first.

According to the Ministry of Transportation, whose published penalties were updated in January 2026, a driver who performs poorly on a drug recognition evaluation, or who fails or refuses a testing demand, faces an immediate roadside 90 day licence suspension under section 48.3.1 or section 48.3 of the Highway Traffic Act, a 7 day vehicle impoundment under section 48.4, an 8 hour education course and a $550 penalty on a first occasion, plus a reinstatement fee. Second and third occasions keep the 90 days and the $550 while escalating the program requirements and adding a six month ignition interlock condition. Failing a standard field sobriety test, for alcohol or drugs, carries a 7 day suspension, an 8 hour course and a $250 penalty on a first occasion, rising on later occasions. Section 48.0.1 of the Highway Traffic Act is what creates that short-term suspension, and it runs 7 days on a first suspension, 14 days on a second and 30 days on a third or later one.

Conviction is what changes the picture permanently. Section 41 of the Highway Traffic Act suspends a licence on a conviction under section 320.14 or 320.15 of the Criminal Code, for one year on a first conviction, three years on a first subsequent conviction, and indefinitely on any conviction after that. On a first conviction Ontario imposes a suspension of at least one year with mandatory education or treatment and an ignition interlock condition for at least a year. A second conviction within ten years brings at least three years, interlock for at least three years and a mandatory medical evaluation. A third within ten years brings a lifetime suspension, reducible after ten years if criteria are met, with interlock for at least six years. A fourth within ten years brings a lifetime suspension with no possibility of reduction. Where impaired driving causes death, the suspension is for life, reducible after twenty five years if criteria are met, with interlock for at least six years.

Drivers who are 21 or under, who hold a G1, G2, M1 or M2 licence, or who drive commercially are subject to a zero tolerance rule. No drugs and no alcohol in the system at all, which for a young cannabis user is a materially different exposure from the one described in the per se table above.

Building a defence around the evidence chain

A drug related DUI is won or lost on the chain, not on the charge. Where was the stop. What supplied the suspicion. Was the equipment the equipment the Order approves. What raised suspicion to belief. Who drew the blood, into what, sealed when. What the certificate says and what it does not. Each of those is a place where a case can come apart, and none of them is visible from the outside of the file.

Kazandji Law is led by founding partner Fadi Matthew Kazandji and serves clients across the Greater Toronto Area from four locations:

• Toronto (head office): 180 John Street, Unit 320, Toronto, Ontario M5T 1X5, close to the Ontario Court of Justice at 10 Armoury Street.
• Thornhill: 7191 Yonge Street, Suite 310, serving Markham, Richmond Hill and Vaughan, with York Region matters heard in Newmarket at 50 Eagle Street West.
• North York: convenient for clients north of the 401.
• Oakville: serving Halton Region.

We act across the driving offences, including impaired driving and dangerous driving, and on drug charges and criminal defence matters generally. If you were held after arrest, see bail and bail hearings. Clients in York Region can start at our Markham criminal defence page, and past results are on our case results page.

Drug related DUI charges: the questions that come up first

This page sets out general legal information about section 320.14 of the Criminal Code, the Blood Drug Concentration Regulations and the Approved Drug Screening Equipment Order, current as of July 2026. Provincial consequences are described from published Ministry of Transportation material. This is not legal advice, and reading it does not create a lawyer and client relationship. Every file turns on its own facts and its own disclosure. If you are facing a drug related driving charge, speak to a criminal defence lawyer about your own circumstances.