All local police patrol officers have received specialized training intended to help them spot “drugged drivers” or those motorists who are illegally driving vehicles while under the influence of various drugs, according to Police Chief Michael Kehoe.

Chief Kehoe said this week that all patrol officers have received 16 hours of training in drugged driving detection to help them identify those drivers who are violating state law covering such activity.

The shorthand term commonly used to describe intoxicated driving is “driving under the influence,” but more specifically, the law is known as “driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs.”

Most of the arrests that police make for such activity involves alcohol use, with the remainder involving drugs or both alcohol and drugs, Chief Kehoe said.

There is now more drugged driving by motorists than in the past and the signs of such activity are not as obvious as driving that is impaired by alcohol use, so police have received the drugged driving training to sharpen their detection skills, he said.

Chief Kehoe told Police Commission members on June 3 that the town’s police department is one of the first departments in the state to have all its patrol officers trained in detecting drugged driving.

He told commission members that drugged driving is just as dangerous as drunken driving.

Police will employ their new training while on general patrol, as well as at sobriety checkpoints that they conduct several times a year, the chief said.

The goal of such training is to have police stop “impaired driving” on local roads, he said.

The police department’s resident expert on drugged driving is patrol Officer Matthew Wood. He is a certified “drug recognition expert.”

That training provides Officer Wood with techniques designed to determine which of seven classes of drugs may be affecting intoxicated drivers. Those drug classes are: central nervous system depressants, inhalants, dissociative anesthetics, cannabis, central nervous system stimulants, hallucinogens, and narcotic analgesics.

Chief Kehoe has said that over the years, town police have found that an increasing number of people charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs have been intoxicated with illicit street drugs or with prescription medications. Such street drugs include marijuana, heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine.

The training was made possible by a grant from the Newtown Prevention Council.