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Medicine

Company Says It's Built a Marijuana Breathalyzer That Will Hit the Market In 2020 (techdirt.com) 141

Posted by BeauHD from the only-time-will-tell dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt: There's currently no field test equipment that detects marijuana impairment. A company in California thinks it has a solution. From San Francisco Chronicle: "By mid-2020, Hound Laboratories plans to begin selling what it says is the world's first dual alcohol-marijuana breath analyzer, which founder Dr. Mike Lynn says can test whether a user has ingested THC of any kind in the past two to three hours. 'We're allowed to have this in our bodies,' Lynn said of marijuana, which became legal to use recreationally in California in 2018. 'But the tools to differentiate somebody who's impaired from somebody who's not don't exist.'"

We won't know if these claims are true until the testing equipment is deployed. And even then, we still won't know if the machines are accurate or the drivers they catch are actually impaired. Marijuana doesn't work like alcohol, so impairment levels vary from person to person. In addition, there's no baseline for impairment like there is for alcohol. That will have to be sorted out by state legislatures before officers can begin to claim someone is "impaired" just because the equipment has detected THC. At this point, the tech pitched by Hound Labs only provides a yes/no answer. There's a very good chance this new tech will go live before the important details -- the ones safeguarding people's rights and freedoms -- are worked out. The founder of Hound Labs is also a reserve deputy for the Alameda County Sheriff's Office. And it's this agency that's been test driving the weedalyzer. "[T]his new tech should be greeted with the proper amount of skepticism," the report says. "Breathalyzers that detect alcohol have been around for decades and are still far from perfect. A new device that promises to detect recent marijuana use just because researchers say consumption can be detected for up to three hours shouldn't be treated as a solution."

"The device is stepping into a legal and legislative void with no established baseline for marijuana 'intoxication.'"
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Company Says It's Built a Marijuana Breathalyzer That Will Hit the Market In 2020 More

Company Says It's Built a Marijuana Breathalyzer That Will Hit the Market In 2020

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  • Err on the side of caution (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Friday January 10, 2020 @08:15AM (#59606032) Homepage

    In the UK (and probably other places) they already use saliva swabs to detect marijuana because that's where the THC is. THC isn't a volatile solvent like alcohol is so there's not much point in looking in the breath.

    They look like pregnancy testers. The line goes pink? You're busted.

    This new thing sounds to me like somebody trying to grab some government money using too much tech. It'll be expensive, it'll be unreliable, lawyers will get richer, ie. it'll be widely deployed real soon now.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • One can't refuse an alcohol test, but taking a test that combines alcohol with other, consent-based testing... be interesting when someone on the spot refuses the combined test but consents to alcohol testing. And of course plod only has the combined tester to hand.

        • This will be handled the same as other tests. It will mean a trip to the police station for the test.

          Really they'll just make it mandatory like with alcohol, but it might take a few years in many locations.

    • Re:Err on the side of caution (Score:5, Funny)

      by Layzej ( 1976930 ) on Friday January 10, 2020 @09:05AM (#59606152)
      In Canada we use cookie dough [youtube.com]. The saliva test has real issues. [youtube.com]

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      In the UK it's still not legal. Any amount is a fail. Here in the US many states permit it. Two people with the same amount in their system will have dramatically differing levels of impairment. This is less true for alcohol, where most people will be similarly impaired at similar BAC readings. Therefore this tool can only be misused.

      • Level of individual impairment is immaterial. They just need to pick a baseline, reasonable, agreed upon level at which some significant portion of people are meaningfully impaired. If you drive over that level, you get arrested. It's really quite simple.

        • The problem with that approach is that someone who hasn't smoked before, or smoked in a long time, may be a stumbling idiot hours after smoking a single joint, whereas a long-time smoker who smokes multiple times a day may have the same blood-THC level after 12 or 24 hours of abstinence, when they aren't the least bit impaired.

          • That's not a problem at all. Again, you can't set a law saying "well, if you weigh 102lbs soaking wet and punch someone over 250 pounds of pure muscle, they probably won't be hurt so that's legal, but if you weigh over 150lbs then it's illegal".

            The point isn't to build a perfect system that magically punishes only those who are impaired. The point is to make an enforceable, reasonable law that discourages impaired drivers by setting a very clear limit that can be measured/tested. Nobody gives a shit if you

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cederic ( 9623 )

        In the UK it's still not legal. Any amount is a fail.

        That's not strictly true.

        There are legal uses for oil, it's not illegal to fly in from Amsterdam having enjoyed yourself in a cafe there and there's a clear difference between 'in breach of drug laws' and 'legally unsafe to drive'.

    • In the UK (and probably other places) they already use saliva swabs to detect marijuana because that's where the THC is.

      THC metabolites, sure. Measuring active THC levels requires drawing blood; X nanograms per ml, etc.

    • That's exactly the issue. These swab tests detect "recent usage" but not intoxication. Also, it does test byproducts of THC metabolism So if you're a regular smoker and not intoxicated, you may still test positive.
      Bottom line is, the grey area is too large.
      As a user, you don't know if you should stop smoking 4 hours, 6 hours, 12 hours before driving, how much you can smoke, etc...
      Because chances are if you didn't smoke in two days but are a heavy smoker, you could still have traces which will trigger the

  • Reflexes and hand-eye coordination test (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fleeped ( 1945926 ) on Friday January 10, 2020 @08:21AM (#59606038)
    Why can't they just devise a test for reflexes and hand-eye coordination, which are what gets impaired when getting plastered or stoned, or being too tired, etc

    • Re:Reflexes and hand-eye coordination test (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Dunbal ( 464142 ) * on Friday January 10, 2020 @08:35AM (#59606064)
      They did, but most cops are too busy/lazy to do it properly and lawyers can argue many niggling details about it in court, getting their clients off. A machine that can be demonstrated to produce consistent results when calibrated correctly, however, is hard to argue. It has less to do with impairment and more to do with lawyers. An experienced cop can pretty much tell right away if you're impaired. Proving it, however, is another matter entirely.
      • Fair enough, that makes sense.

        • Especially true since some amounts and types of weed will increase that. I know people that drive, play sports, work out, play video games better high than they do sober. You may laugh at video games and the stereotype, but if that's not a test of your reaction time I don't know what is.

      • In most countries such a test is only used to "gather evidence".
        And when the test is positive, a blood test is done.

        E.g. if I have a mouth infection and I gargled with Gin ten minutes ago any breath based test will be triggered but a blood test will show I'm close to zero promille alcohol.

        At least that is how we do it in Europe.

    • Some people who are sober would fail. I’d say that means they shouldn’t be driving at all, but good luck with that.

      Just hold out a plate of brownies. If the suspected driver is sober they’ll politely decline. If they eat all of the brownies they were obviously tripping balls.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jellomizer ( 103300 )

        In America we are too dependent on driving.
        Our road ways have became Americas secret totalitarian government. While driving is a key part of our infrastructure and needed for our daily survival and prosperity, it isn't considered a right so it had become strictly regulated to a point you have to drive in fear when you see a police car. Where you can get fined or jailed or your right to drive revoked for doing a driving procedure which is dangerous in the right circumstances.
        The car makers like to push the

        • Getting drunk and being able to bomb around on public transportation is fantastic. Maybe not as much for the other people on it, but I've never minded cheery drunks.

          It's always a good time when I find myself in a city with decent public transport between drinking establishments and the hotel. We generally have at least one light drinker to stay semi-sober and make sure we don't get into too much trouble, and get on the ride going the right direction. I wish there was a lot more of that in the US.

    • "Why can't they just devise a test for reflexes and hand-eye coordination, which are what gets impaired when getting plastered or stoned, or being too tired, etc"

      People without hands drive cars too and if you'd removed tired people, the roads would be empty.

    • Law doesn't say " reflexes and hand-eye coordination". Driving too tired is not necessarily against the law. Driving under the influence is against the law.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jabuzz ( 182671 )

        Depends on your jurisdiction. Here in the UK driving too tired can land you with jail time. I refer you to the Great Heck rail crash

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        I would note that there has been a tightening of the law since then and where the same crash to happen today he would get much longer than five years. If you drive tired you are driving without due care and attention which is an offence in the UK.

        A quick check shows that in New Jersey driving tired is an offence too.

      • I know, but the law is made to prevent problems (well, in theory at least). But, given the other reply above, quantifying reflexes etc, and using them as data in court is possibly far more complicated than breathalyzers and the like.

      • An alcoholic without their hair of the dog might register as under the influence, but biologically they are just suppressing the rebound effect and are likely less dangerous that way.

        'But the tools to differentiate somebody who's impaired from somebody who's not don't exist.'"

        And they still don't. It's a brain dead zero tolerance system where a black box decides your fate, and not the individual circumstances. Police would rarely get a conviction if they had to prove anything.

        The law is wrong, and adds to t

        • I know a guy that got busted for DUI the morning after Christmas.

          Dude drinks like a fish, but NEVER combined with driving. Tied one on Christmas night, and got up in the morning (~9) heading to work. Had to stop by the bank for the job, one he had never been to before. So he spots the bank, cuts his blinker on and changes to the turn lane - oops - too close to the intersection, gets pulled by a cop.

          Cop says he smells alcohol (might be true - he didn't shower before he left), and wants to do a field breathal

          • It's always a big problem to tie criminal justice imposed penalties to privately run businesses. The people who benefit will always resist changes and in fact probably push for increased consequences. IMHO, these should all be costs borne by the state without any profit potential as it would serve as a barrier to maintaining them when they're not effective, or making them worse just for profits.

            I think it's probably true that drunk driving was a huge problem at one time, with almost no penalty and huge am

            • What's funny is the "substance abuse assessment" everybody entering this court-ordered ASAP class has to submit to. The assessment is used to decide whether you will be required to attend mandatory substance abuse counseling (from another, yes, private company).

              Thing is, I've talked to a LOT of people that have gone through that over the past few years, and I've never heard of ANYBODY that was NOT referred to the additional counseling. And none of them had heard of anybody that weren't referred either.

              • That's because it's an article of faith in the "substance abuse treatment" industry that there is no healthy or safe use of mind altering substances, with the very narrow exception of some kind of life saving intervention for people with a serious physical or mental illness.

                Pretty much everyone else is *supposed* to be sober all the time, and if you're not happy or content with that, well then you might have a substance abuse problem or need counseling. It's almost circular logic, even if you're not using

          • That's definitely "going easy," he's even still allowed to drive.

            • That's definitely "going easy," he's even still allowed to drive.

              Nope. Reading comprehension fail on your part.

        • An alcoholic without their hair of the dog might register as under the influence, but biologically they are just suppressing the rebound effect and are likely less dangerous that way.

          Bullshit.

          Oh yeah, and stop drinking and driving asshole, your excuses don't help.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sjames ( 1099 )

          It doesn't help that the statistics are hopelessly muddied by definitions designed to inflate the numbers. Any presence of alcohol at all at an accident makes it "alcohol related" even if the bottle is sealed.

          So, man has a heart attack while driving and plows into a sidewalk cafe killing 3 people, then he dies on the scene as well from the heart attack. All were sober, but one of the people at the cafe had just been served a glass of wine, so that's 4 alcohol related automobile deaths deaths.

          I have no doubt

      • Well, there is no Federal DUI definition or law. So you are down to 50 states (plus territories, etc) having their own definition.

        And here in Florida, yes, being excessively tired can get you popped for a DUI. So can having blood sugar issues if you are diabetic, etc.

      • Driving too tired is not necessarily against the law.
        In Germany it is illegal ... and not only for professional drivers.

    • Because that test is 100% subjective. At least with a properly calibrated machine there isn't any room for argument.

      • Of course there is. Two different people with the same score will have wildly differing levels of impairment. This is much less true with alcohol, although it's somewhat true there too.

        • Because that test is 100% subjective. At least with a properly calibrated machine there isn't any room for argument.

          Of course there is. Two different people with the same score will have wildly differing levels of impairment. This is much less true with alcohol, although it's somewhat true there too.

          The law doesn't just say "don't drive while impaired." It says that. But in places where marijuana is legal, the law generally also says not to drive while under the influence. That period of time is less variable, regardless of how "impaired" you feel.

          Also, the impairment isn't measurable, or of a nature that you should let people try to self-judge it. Marijuana doesn't negatively affect body coordination, other than in new users. Lots of athletes use marijuana before training. The whole "get stoned and ea

    • Why can't they just devise a test for reflexes and hand-eye coordination, which are what gets impaired when getting plastered or stoned, or being too tired, etc

      Have you got one that gives a simple, clear numerical pass/fail answer?

      PS: Who's "they"?

      • They = researchers possibly, as stakeholders would only delegate, not devise. Well, I don't have one, but I can imagine like doctors would flash things into your eyes to check dilation etc, some test like that. A whack-a-mole game would be great :)

    • That would be fine, but for every suspect you would need an unimpaired baseline test to compare to, taken when you know they're sober and alert (and also you need to somehow know they're doing their best on this test, not faking). It's ok if they have shitty reflexes and poor coordination, as long as they're like that all the time. These kinds of laws aren't about peoples' absolute performance; it's about their relative (to themselves) performance. Nobody cares whether or not you're a good driver or bad one

    • You would think there would be some kind of neurological test that would involve staring into some kind of hand-held thing like a binoculars that was capable of measuring ocular responsiveness or something.

      I'm just making this "test" up, but the idea is you would think they would find some kind of measurable neurological response that could track THC intoxication pretty easily.

  • Honest in their dishonest (Score:5, Funny)

    by Martin S. ( 98249 ) on Friday January 10, 2020 @08:33AM (#59606056) Journal

    I could not help smiling at their stance, their founder recognises and communicates that the testing is complete disingenuous wrt impairment but is making no excuses.

    • The officer probably isn't going to pull you over in the first place unless you show you're impaired. Weaving in your lane, going 15 MPH under the speed limit, stopping 6 feet past the stop line, etc. They'll pull you over, and then check. This will be the backup to the initial stop. That's how it works with other impaired driving stops - it'll work this way for THC drivers too (who are just as bad as alcoholics, having been near too many that roiled out the clouds and could be smelled from 12 cars back.

      • Oh god man how old are you? Cops pull people over because it's drunk people hours and they need to meet quota.
        Jesus christ. I know people in broke towns who get pulled over all the time just because of the hours they work.
        Fuck man Slashdot used to be full of straight dork freedom fighters but now it's full of boot lickers. Did age do this to you?

        Adding this shithole to my hosts file.

    • That isn't dishonest, if you consumed recently is literally what people want tested.

      The only people asking for an impairment test are

      1) people who drive while stoned and feel threatened
      2) people who drink and drive and feel triggered

      Everybody else wants a test that distinguishes between "smoked weed recently" and "smoked weed days ago." That's what people want, and what the stakeholders want, including the cops, lawyers, doctors, etc.

  • Alameda County Cash Cow (Score:3)

    by crunchy_one ( 1047426 ) on Friday January 10, 2020 @08:33AM (#59606060)
    Alameda county already runs a speed trap on the 280. I was once cited for doing 59 in a 55 zone back when that was the speed limit. It's easy to imagine they'll use this to further fill their coffers. This is simply corrupt California government at its finest, with a big assist from private industry.

  • Gotta rush them out ASAP (Score:3)

    by FritzTheCat1030 ( 758024 ) on Friday January 10, 2020 @08:45AM (#59606092)
    "We won't know if these claims are true until the testing equipment is deployed. And even then, we still won't know if the machines are accurate or the drivers they catch are actually impaired."

    What if I told this guy it was possible to test these things before they started using them in the field and arresting people? But I guess they generate revenue regardless of whether the accused is guilty or not and we all know that is the most important thing...

  • Pain management (Score:3)

    by MrKaos ( 858439 ) on Friday January 10, 2020 @08:57AM (#59606126) Journal

    I wonder what happens if you use it for managing pain? Does it change the outcome if you have a medical prescription for cannabis?

    • No of course not. Impaired driving is impaired driving. You can have prescriptions for any number of medications that make you drowsy, and also get you busted.

      • I would be interested in seeing a graph that shows net impairment (which might be difficult to quantify -- maybe number of accidents instead?) as a function of blood alcohol, blood THC/whatever other marijuana chemicals, sleep deprivation in hours, phone usage, "anger level (difficult to quantify ofc)," and other common causes of bad driving. My suspicion is that reasonable amounts of marijuana use are significantly less detrimental to vehicle usage than sleep deprivation, phone usage, and anger, and very s

        • IIRC studies have been done. For the most part, -with experienced users-, they found that marijuana use had minimal, if any, negative effects on drivers. (A few studies actually showed net benefits.)

          Naive users are a different story.

    • First, you need to give cause to get pulled over. Are you swerving around, or driving erratically? That's cause. This is then machine confirmation. If you're NOT impaired, you won't get pulled over in the first place.

  • So it can detect edibles? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by HalAtWork ( 926717 ) on Friday January 10, 2020 @09:41AM (#59606320)

    If it just detects impairment, does that mean it detects the use of edibles?

  • It's just there to establish probable cause (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday January 10, 2020 @09:50AM (#59606376)
    for a search & arrest. Doesn't have to work.

    American drug policy is a multi-tiered system. At the top you've got politician & their kids kids (I'm lookin' at you Hunter Biden. You too Matt Gaetz). Near the bottom you've got poor black folk.

    The point is to allow the police to oppress undesirables. This isn't even secret. [youtube.com]

    It's an effective way to keep the poor in their place too. In my old city we had some crime ridden apartments up the street, but they never bothered us because whenever one of them would venture out of their hell hole the cops came in, busted everybody for the 8 oz of weed they had in a draw and sent them to jail for 6 months.

    All in all this allows us to have an under class nearby to do our lawns and clean our houses but never actually have to worry about improving their lot in life. Best part is we get to blame them for their "weak character".
    • this system undermines one of the fundamental checks and balances in Capitalism, e.g. that the ruling class will limit their oppression of the working class because they have to live near them. This stratified system of law enforcement means you can have an underclass but that the rest of the working class will ignore their plight. It breaks worker solidarity which you need if you're going to stand up to the power that comes with money.

  • Gotta love the bullshit:
    "Marijuana doesn't work like alcohol, so impairment levels vary from person to person. In addition, there's no baseline for impairment like there is for alcohol. That will have to be sorted out by state legislatures before officers can begin to claim someone is 'impaired' just because the equipment has detected THC."

    Except alcohol impairment levels DO vary from person to person. The very thing that anti-alcohol crusaders demonize, "alcohol tolerance", has been scientifically shown to

    • Alcohol impairment levels do vary, but not to the same extreme degree as with THC.

    • Your footnote at the end is apt. I think a big dude who had half a beer and a good night's rest is a lot less impaired than anyone who is operating on less than four hours of sleep. The problem is, how do we translate that into laws? A lot of times it's very hard to quantify "impairment." That's why we use BAC to begin with, because it's something that can actually be quantified. Maybe we could empower police to determine impairment at traffic stops, but there's already a lot of concern about police abuses

      • Maybe we could empower police to determine impairment at traffic stops, but there's already a lot of concern about police abuses of power... how do we hold them accountable and make sure they're making fair judgments?

        In most states this is already the case. How do we hold them accountable? With jury trials. If it is merely the cop's judgement that you were impaired, without some sort of objective BAC test, then it is much harder to get a conviction. Generally, cops don't try it, they go with the BAC level. But in the rare case where a person is visibly intoxicated, but their BAC is lower, they still get charged with DUII. But there is certainly a gray area where the cop doesn't charge it because it would be too difficul

    • The crux of the risk assessment is when is "impaired" "significant" enough, as in when does the impairment rise to a level that the driver poses enough of a risk to other drivers to then curtail rights/privileges with legal/governmental power? Or, at least, that -should- be the intention. Right?

      Absolutely fucking not, every drunk has a pile of excuses and exceptions for why it is OK that they drive drunk. There is no fucking way that the intention is to regulate impairment directly. The intention is to regulate the behavior of drinking, or smoking weed, and then driving. Yes, yes, everybody knows that every addict has a bunch of excuses, and practice driving that way, that doesn't in any way actually mitigate the risk. So no, no self assessment of how significant your impairment is is going to b

      • Absolutely fucking not, every drunk has a pile of excuses and exceptions for why it is OK that they drive drunk. There is no fucking way that the intention is to regulate impairment directly. The intention is to regulate the behavior of drinking, or smoking weed, and then driving..

        So how long should you wait before drinking or smoking weed and driving?

        If "till you are no longer impaired" is not the correct answer, what is?

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday January 10, 2020 @10:15AM (#59606482)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Since I can tell you're triggered by DUII enforcement, I want to remind you:

      Stop drinking and driving.

  • Usually "under the influence" police stops in the US begin with observing irratic or questionable operation of a vehicle (illegal turns, driving to fast/slow, swerving, failure to stop at a red traffic light/stop sign, stopping for a green traffic light, waiting for the stop sign to change, driving on the wrong side of the road and so on). Most police vehicles and officers have cameras to capture these actions, when the officer makes contact with the drive that is when the suspicion of impaired driving is

  • This can't accurately measure if someone is impaired. If you have high tolerance to THC you could have higher levels, but due to tolerance, it does not impair you as much as someone who has little to no tolerance. All it can tell you is if you exceeded some arbitrary cutoff value, above which law enforcement considers you to be "impaired". I wonder to what extent that value is based on empirical research, though.

  • They once tested an official breathalyzer on Dutch television with an officer of justice and a cop present.
    Guy hadn't eaten in 4 hours, he had to drink 1 beer, wait 10 minutes, test, then drink other beer, wait 10 minutes again, test, etc...
    He drank 9 beers before the machine gave back a positive result. The officer and cop were clearly not amused.
    So, they went to the police station where they had a bigger and more accurate machine that gave the ug/l of alcohol: 170 ug/l ( 0.39 promille).
    Basically, the

  • I did r&d on a THC breathalyser 15 years ago that used fast blue b salts as an indicator in a photometric analysis. It turns from blue to pink in presence of THC. We didn’t commercialise because there is no relationship to blood THC vs breath like there is for alcohol (2300:1), so it would be pretty useless for prosecution purposes.

  • provides driving analysis. Driver you are wasted , we will go to nearest parking and you can sober up. Same with road rage, a quick time out.

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