Sergeant Thomas E. Page, LAPD (ret.) is the former
Officer-in-Charge of the Los Angeles Police Department's Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) Unit. Thomas
Page is a 22-year veteran of law enforcement, having served in both the Los Angeles Police Department and Detroit Police Departments.
Before his a law enforcement career, Thomas Page served the Wayne County, Michigan Health Department for five years as a public
health worker and supervisor.
During his career with the Los Angeles Police Department,
Sergeant Thomas Page was the coordinator for the 1985 Los Angeles Field Validation Test (173 case study) of the DRE Procedure.
This study validated the effectiveness and reliability of a standardized and systematic approach to drug influence recognition.
These procedures have been adopted nationwide by professionals in government, law enforcement, military, private industry
and health care.
Thomas Page has taught drug influence recognition and
the behavioral indicators of drug use to a wide range of audiences. These audiences include the American Bar Association,
Northwestern University Traffic Institute, the California Department of Mental Health, the Swedish National Police Federation
in Stockholm, the Russian Procuracy Training Academy in Moscow, the Victoria Police in Melbourne, Australia, the Department
of the Army, nurses, physicians, psychiatrists, toxicologists, and private industry. He received his Bachelor
of Arts degree in Industrial Psychology, and his Master of Arts degree in Urban Affairs from the University of Detroit.
Sergeant Thomas Page is a past first General Chairperson
of the DRE Section of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and is a past member of IACP's DRE Technical
Advisory Panel. Sergeant Thomas Page has also been an advisory member of the Canadian Society of Forensic Science's Drugs
and Driving Committee. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Industrial Psychology, and his Master of Arts degree in
Urban Affairs from the University of Detroit.
Thomas Page has authored numerous articles on drug
user detection techniques. His credits include Police Chief Magazine, The Siren, The DRE, the Victoria Australia Parliamentary
Road Safety Committee Report, and the 1988 International Congress on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Oslo, Norway.
He is the co-author of Drug Information Handbook for the Criminal Justice Professional and
the co-editor of Medical-Legal Aspects of Abused Substances: Old And New - Licit And Illicit.
According to the author of Medical-Legal Aspects of Abused Substances: Old And New - Licit And Illicit,
“This book continues a discourse that was begun with Medical-Legal Aspects of Drugs (Burns, 2003). As can be
noted by the chapter titles, however, the topics extend beyond drugs that have been widely misused and abused over time. The
authors discuss newly compounded substances, as well as re-discovered drugs of abuse. Scientific knowledge about a substance
typically lags behind the need-to-know within the criminal justice system and the treatment community. It is only when a particular
drug becomes a significant problem and citizens demand attention to the problem that adequate funds become available for research
and treatment. Thus, data from rigorous scientific study often do not exist for new or newly popular drugs. Nonetheless, on
a daily basis law enforcement, the courts, and many others in the community confront the consequences of drug use-whether
old or new, licit or illicit. Professionals who deal with drug users have written this book. They include police officers,
defense attorney, pharmacologist, police physician, prosecutor, psychologist, and toxicologist. Their platforms of expertise
are the laboratory, the courtroom, and the streets. Their perspectives are international. They are truly from the front line
of the drug problems that are worldwide in scope. They obtained much of the information that they share with the reader from
their daily responsibilities. Their limited bibliographies reflect not carelessness but reality; in many cases, there are
few if any scientific studies to be cited. We truly are indebted to the authors for their contributions. We acknowledge their
generosity of time and effort, especially since some expressed misgivings about their writing skills and others continued
to write during periods of great personal stress. We also thank our assistant, Jené Moio, without whose skills we could
not have persevered.”
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