Drug-Impaired Driving

What counts as drug-impaired driving in Ontario?

Ontario treats impairment as impairment, whatever caused it. The Ministry of Transportation defines impaired driving as operating a vehicle while the ability to do so has been compromised to any degree by alcohol, cannabis, over-the-counter drugs, prescription medication, illegal substances, or a combination of them. The same rules reach cars, trucks, boats, snowmobiles and off-road vehicles.

Two separate bodies of law apply at the same time, and they do different jobs. The Criminal Code of Canada creates the offence and the criminal record. Ontario's Highway Traffic Act creates the immediate administrative consequences a driver meets at the roadside (the licence suspension, the vehicle impoundment and the monetary penalty), and those land before any court hears the matter.

That is why a single traffic stop produces a licence suspension weeks or months ahead of a trial date. The roadside penalty is not a finding of guilt. It is a licensing decision Ontario makes on its own authority, and it takes effect on the spot.

What blood-drug limits does federal law set?

Canada sets numeric blood-drug limits in the Blood Drug Concentration Regulations. For tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, the main psychoactive compound in cannabis), the summary conviction limit is 2 nanograms per millilitre of blood. The hybrid offence begins at 5 nanograms per millilitre. A combined alcohol-and-THC limit sits between the two.

GHB carries a numeric threshold because the body produces small amounts of it naturally. Every other drug on the federal list is a zero: any detectable level in the blood is the offence, with no allowance built in.

Who is subject to Ontario's zero-tolerance rule?

Ontario's zero-tolerance law removes the numeric threshold entirely for four groups of drivers. For them the permitted level of cannabis is none, measured at the roadside by a federally approved drug screening device rather than by a laboratory blood test.

The same zero-tolerance rule already applied to alcohol for these four groups. Cannabis was added on the same footing, so a novice driver faces one standard for both substances rather than two different ones.

The Ministry of Transportation states that drivers authorized to use cannabis for medical reasons are not subject to the zero-tolerance drug requirements. That exemption is narrow: it lifts the zero-tolerance rule alone, and leaves every impairment offence in place.

• Drivers aged 21 and under, whatever class of licence they hold
• Every G1, G2, M1 and M2 holder, at any age
• Anyone driving a vehicle that requires an A–F driver's licence or a Commercial Vehicle Operator's Registration (CVOR)
• Anyone operating a road-building machine

How do police test for drugs at the roadside?

Ontario police work through three tools, and each one sits at a different tier of penalty: an approved roadside drug screening device that reads oral fluid, a Standard Field Sobriety Test administered by a trained officer, and a Drug Recognition Expert evaluation carried out by an officer holding that specialist certification.

A driver's response to the demand carries the same weight as the result. Refusing or failing to comply with a demand for alcohol or drug testing sits in the identical penalty tier as failing the test outright: the 90-day suspension, the seven-day impoundment and the $550 penalty.

The oral-fluid screener is a threshold device, not a measurement. What it produces is grounds for the next step, and the Drug Recognition Expert evaluation is where the higher tier of Ontario penalty is decided.

What are the immediate roadside penalties in Ontario?

Ontario applies two tiers. Poor performance on a Standard Field Sobriety Test brings a seven-day suspension, an eight-hour education course and a $250 penalty on a first occasion. A failed or refused test, or poor performance in a Drug Recognition Expert evaluation, brings a 90-day suspension, a seven-day impoundment and a $550 penalty.

A licence reinstatement fee is payable every time a licence is suspended, on top of the penalty amounts in the table.

The lower tier used to be a three-day suspension for a first occasion. That figure appears in Ontario coverage published in 2018 and is out of date: the first-occasion suspension is now seven days, with a mandatory eight-hour education course attached to it.

What happens on a criminal conviction?

A criminal conviction sits on top of the roadside penalties rather than replacing them. Ontario adds a licence suspension of at least one year on a first conviction, a mandatory education or treatment program, and an ignition interlock device for at least one year. Fines and jail time are set federally under the Criminal Code.

The Ministry of Transportation records that some impaired driving penalties changed on July 1st, 2026, the same commencement date as Ontario's accident benefits reform. The two are unrelated in substance and share only that date, so a summary of either one written before mid-2026 is out of date on its face.

• First conviction: suspension of at least one year, mandatory education or treatment, ignition interlock for at least one year, then a minimum six-month zero alcohol and zero drugs condition on the licence
• Second conviction within 10 years: suspension of at least three years, mandatory education or treatment, ignition interlock for at least three years
• Third conviction within 10 years: lifetime suspension, reducible after 10 years on certain criteria, ignition interlock for at least six years, and a mandatory medical evaluation
• Fourth conviction within 10 years: lifetime suspension, with no possibility of reduction
• Impaired driving causing death: lifetime suspension, reducible after 25 years on certain criteria, and ignition interlock for at least six years

How does a drug-impaired driving charge affect Ontario auto insurance?

Two things happen at once and they are worth separating. A suspended licence removes the driver's authority to operate the vehicle. The vehicle's own insurance obligation is untouched. Under Ontario law an insured policy is required while the vehicle is plated and on the road, whoever is driving it.

The Compulsory Automobile Insurance Act makes it an offence to operate, or to permit the operation of, a motor vehicle on an Ontario highway without insurance. A suspension takes away a driver. It does not take away the obligation attached to the vehicle, and letting the policy lapse converts one problem into two.

Insurers file their rates and rating rules with the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario, and driving convictions sit among the factors those filed rules take into account. What that produces in a particular case depends on the insurer's own filed rules, the driver's record and the vehicle.

Ontario also has a residual market. Facility Association exists, in its own words, to ensure the availability of automobile insurance to owners, lessees and licensed drivers of motor vehicles who are eligible, and it operates in Ontario alongside eight other provinces and territories.

What happens to the policy while a suspension is in force?

A policy does not end by itself when a licence is suspended. What changes is who is permitted to drive, and that is information the insurer holds the contract on. An Ontario automobile policy is written on the drivers declared for the vehicle, so a suspension is a material change to report through the broker.

The routes available at that point are concrete rather than abstract. The vehicle continues on the policy with a different listed driver. The suspended driver is excluded by endorsement, where the insurer permits that endorsement. Or the plates come off and the vehicle moves to a storage-only basis until the licence is restored.

Each of those has a different premium consequence and a different effect on the continuity of coverage, and continuity is itself a rating factor, so a lapse costs more than the months it saves. What none of the routes is, is silence. An unreported change is the failure mode that turns a licensing problem into a coverage dispute at claim time.

Does a medical cannabis authorization change the position?

It changes one rule and leaves the rest standing. A driver authorized to use cannabis for medical reasons is not subject to Ontario's zero-tolerance drug requirements. Impairment remains an offence, the federal blood-drug limits still apply, and the roadside penalties are unchanged.

The Ministry of Transportation is explicit that penalties and criminal charges remain available where the ability to drive has been impaired. The medical exemption answers the zero-tolerance rule specifically. It is not an answer to impaired driving.

How long does cannabis affect driving ability?

The Ministry of Transportation states that impairment from cannabis is almost immediate and lasts up to six hours or more, depending on THC levels and how the cannabis was consumed. The effects run longer for a new user, after heavy consumption, and where cannabis has been combined with alcohol.

The same guidance is blunt about what follows from that variability: there is no way to know exactly how long to wait before it is safe to drive, and the high wearing off is not the same event as the impairment ending.

Ontario police reports recorded 74 people killed in 2016 collisions involving a driver under the influence of drugs. Ontario's rules on transporting cannabis run alongside the driving rules: cannabis in a motorized vehicle is unlawful where it is open and out of its original packaging, or not packed in baggage and readily available to anyone in the vehicle.

Sources

• Ontario Ministry of Transportation: Impaired driving
• Ontario Ministry of Transportation: Cannabis and driving
• Blood Drug Concentration Regulations, SOR/2018-148
• Highway Traffic Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.8
• Compulsory Automobile Insurance Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. C.25
• Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario
• Facility Association