Breath Test For Pot Being Developed At WSU

An anonymous reader writes with this news from Tacoma, WA's News Tribune: A team at Washington State University is working to develop a breath test that could quickly determine whether a driver is under the influence of marijuana. Law enforcement officers already use preliminary breath tests in the field to estimate drivers' blood alcohol content. But no similar portable tool exists to test for marijuana impairment ... Stoned drivers have become an increasing concern since Washington voters legalized recreational use of marijuana ... A quarter of blood samples taken from drivers in 2013, the first full year the initiative was in effect, came back positive for pot. ... officers and prosecutors rely on blood tests to determine how much active THC is present in a driver's blood. Those test results aren't immediately available to patrol officers who suspect someone is driving high." Also reported: "Under Washington's legal marijuana law, those who get caught driving with a blood content of at least 5 nanograms of active THC per milliliter are subject to an automatic driver's license suspension of 90 days or more."

Comments

Antiquated technology

[Stargoat]

As great as any new technology is, I hope this is antiquated by law changes before the technical application machines become practical.

Evidence?

[TechyImmigrant]

Where are the properly controlled studies showing that a given level of blood THC is causally related to an increase in driving accidents?

Or will they go the route of cell phones and accidents and only look at the THC blood levels of drivers in accidents so it's impossible to show causation?

 

Re:is it really bad in the first place?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not very scientific. I'm sure most drunk drivers would say the same.

Re:The future for marijuana consumers

[amiga3D]

Maybe people could just not be stoned or drunk while they drive? Is it that much to ask?

Re:is it really bad in the first place?

[Anonymous Coward]

Marijuana slows reaction time and I think makes people less able to concentrate. So it definitely interferes with driving.

So does age. How many states have a law that says persons over X age must stop driving without taking individual circumstance into account? I can't imagine the uproar that would result if a bill were proposed that said anyone found driving over age X would immediately be arrested for driving under the influence of advanced age.

For that matter, how many states even require senior citizens to regularly prove that they have adequate reaction time and ability to concentrate? A few, very few, states do but not many.

Of all the things that can render a person unfit to drive, why are only two being singled out as needing to be measured by other than the functional ability of the drivers?

Re:The future for marijuana consumers

[davydagger]

I am very skeptical, historically, this has been proven to not be the case. While its true, things like fines can bring in money, once they become dependant on than money, they depend on people violating the law in order to keep their budgets. This creates a very perverse effect, similar to the indian cobra effect

We see this throughout history, from the paid theif catchers of victorian england, to red light cameras, to ticket quotas, manditory sentancing, the war on drugs, etc...

Theif catchers saw well dressed criminals running "theif catching rings", bringing in very questionable arrests. Red Light Cameras saw towns make "short yellows", or shorten the amount of time a traffic ligh is yellow to encourage more people to accidently get caught running a red light, making intersections far more dangerous.

Ticket quotas resulted in uneven enforcement, mainly at the end of the month to meet quota. It also tended to make the officers do unsavory things like tailgate suspects with their lights on, and arrest people for marginal violations, all for the sake of making the town money.

Manditory sentancing gave a career criminal a chance to do anything else, merely made him get comfortable in prison, and often sent him back there.

The war on drugs speaks for itselves. Massive busts fuel the DEA's budget and allowed their reckless abandonment of any and all virtues this country has stood for, but seem to still take mabey %1 of total drug sales per year off the market. They've also been caught siding with one cartel against another, letting the system continue, so long as they got their portion of the pie, arrests, and with it, funding.

No sir, as long as their financial incentive, then there is an incentive for crime to continue. Especially in this day and age, when that incentive is making a "career" that pays better than anything else, and its union isn't subject for debate like other unions.

Re:is it really bad in the first place?

[Kjella]

I actually saw a test once with a race driver getting hammered between doing rounds on a track with cones and various obstacles, his best lap came after 7 double vodka-orange juice when he was all but wasted. It's not muscle control that's the biggest drawback with drunk driving, it's that your reaction time and reasoning ability goes to hell. Put a bunch of people in a car simulator, half with placebo and half with pot and I'm sure they'll drive fine in ordinary situations. The interesting bit is what happens in potential accident scenarios.

Re:is it really bad in the first place?

[Tenebrousedge]

Your link is misleading. Yes, marijuana does not do good things to developing brains — there are much better studies which demonstrate this. There is no similar evidence which suggests that either moderate use or use beginning in adulthood has the same effect.

Here is the actual study in question. Do note that their average test subject started at age 16 and smokes five joints per day. From the article,

The association presents compelling evidence for white matter reacting differently to cannabis exposure commencing during adolescence compared with adulthood...

One joint does not a pothead make. You've pretty much already missed the boat for pot-related brain damage, but your knee-jerk antagonism against cannabis users is equally as dumb. Even if everything you imagine to be true about cannabis use was in fact the truth,

I think that THC use and Texting while driving should have the exact same penalties as someone who has .08 BAC.

This does not follow. There is no objective evidence suggesting that marijuana is equally impairing, and suggesting that any amount of use or exposure to THC is equivalent to being dangerously impaired is simple prejudice.

Re:is it really bad in the first place?

[catmistake]

See the fallacy being presented! They are putting the cart before the horse. Before a government implements policy to go after stone drivers to prevent accidental death, it needs to be shown that stoners cause accidents! You can't just assume that. There is tons of data for alcohol related accidents. But there is hardly any for cannabis induced accidents... because there are so few, if any, documented cases of a person who is intoxicated ONLY with pot causing an accident. This is fear-mongering, pure and simple, and they're using their fear-mongering to set up controls that are inappropriate. You don't have to be afraid of the unknown... just admit to yourself that you don't know, and suspend judgement until you do.

Re:is it really bad in the first place?

[catmistake]

Have data that cannabis intoxication causes accidents before you make laws attempting to prevent these accidents. Don't assume. The facts are in stark opposition to the actions of these authorities. For every 10K alcohol related accidents, you may see one cannabis related accident. Seriously, its not even on par with texting, but likely on par with crashing because someone had their high beams in your face. Don't be afraid of the unknown, and don't make up things that make you afraid and pretend they are real. The scourge of cannabis induced car accidents is fiction. That being said, intoxicated driving is intoxicated driving, should still be illegal. But to spend God-knows-what on some technology for law enforcement to use when it certainly is not clear its necessary is really stupid. They're not going to prevent a single accident (because stoned drivers so so so rarely get into accidents), and they will have blown a bunch of money for nothing. What happened to hold your head back and touch your nose... walk a straight line? If you beat the sobriety test, you beat it! If that's not good enough, then wtf was it doing there to begin with? Police don't need a breathalizer to do their job... they just need to stfu and do their damn job: stop crime! Stop making up bullshit and costing taxpayers for no reason.

Re:is it really bad in the first place?

[stealth_finger]

Haha. I'm a daily smoker and I've never had an accident and avoided more than my fair share in more than 15 years. I know it's only anecdotal but I reckon you'd have just as good a result banning driving under the influence of too much caffeine. I mean, it makes you jittery and unable to concentrate properly, right? Bad news for driving.