Core: Medicines, drugs and the yellow sticker

The law prohibits driving under the influence of any substance you know or reasonably ought to know impairs your driving ability — that applies to prescribed medicines just as much as to illegal drugs. For AMvB-designated drugs, fixed blood limits also apply: above that limit you are punishable, regardless of how you feel. The yellow sticker or pictogram on the packaging (Book p.16) makes that standard concretely visible, but is not itself a legal threshold — a box without a sticker can still fall under the law, and a sticker is no guarantee the law requires nothing else. A fact the law itself does not state but the book does: some medicines remain active in your body for up to 48 hours, even if you only used them once. Do you combine drugs with alcohol, or several designated substances with each other? Then the normal limit no longer applies per substance — instead it is the lowest measurable amount, in practice a zero-limit. And as with alcohol, a duty to cooperate applies here too: on reasonable suspicion the police can order a blood test which you are obliged to cooperate with. The penalties are not symbolic: the book states a fine of up to €25,750 or imprisonment of up to 1 year, with the driving privilege withdrawn for up to 5 years.