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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."
Not very scientific. I'm sure most drunk drivers would say the same.
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.
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.
The Admin and the Engineer