Today I want to take the opportunity to speak frankly about a genuine threat to cannabis consumers everywhere. Police and technology firms have been working hand in hand to create the next generation of impaired motorist detection devices. We have all heard about or had the unpleasant experience of having to provide a breath sample for a sobriety test. Authorities now believe that they can detect cannabis impairment by utilizing the same techniques that alcohol breathalyzers use. As a former police officer, who has conducted well over 200 DUI investigations, I can tell you with absolute certainty that marijuana breathalyzers are junk science.
Let's first look at the science behind alcohol breathalyzers. We can generally conclude that when a human consumes alcohol, at a certain point, regardless of who you are, when the percentage of alcohol in the blood stream reaches a certain level, motor function becomes impaired. That percentage can easily be determined based on the rate that we shed alcohol through our respiratory system, which is the same for everyone. When you provide a breath sample, ultraviolet light is refracted as it passes through the alcohol that is being exhaled. The instrument can with great accuracy tell exactly how much alcohol is in the sample and through calculation, you can get an accurate blood alcohol level.
Cannabis doesn't work that way. Cannabis consumers all have varying amounts of tolerance. Cannabis tolerance has to do with over-stimulation of the CB1 and CB2 receptors. What this means is that someone who smokes five blunts a day will undoubtedly be able to walk around with higher levels of THC in the blood than someone who only smokes one. Duh. There is no significant correlation between cannabinoid levels in the bloodstream and impairment as it pertains to driving. This assertion was even backed up by AAA's Foundation for Traffic Safety. Their website specifically states, “Legal limits, also known as per se limits, for marijuana and driving are arbitrary and unsupported by science.”
They are not alone. The Arizona State Court of Appeals determined that the presence of THC in the bloodstream is not sufficient in and of itself to convict a person of DUI. Don't get me wrong, if you cause a crash or are obviously impaired to the point you shouldn't be driving, the totality of circumstance could still convict you. What the Arizona appeals court did, in effect , was to set a precedent that gives anyone arrested for a cannabis DUI a solid legal defense.
There is money in locking people up. Recently it was announced that Benchmark Capital, the VC firm behind Uber, Dropbox and WeWork were investing their money in a tech startup that have designed a marijuana breathalyzer. Their device is a failure from the start. It allegedly measures the amount of THC in a person's breath. Even if it could, it fails to acknowledge or account for the Entourage Effect. THC is responsible for a significant portion of your high, but without the hundreds of Cannabinoids contained within, your high just wouldn't be the same. To create a test that only gathers one side of the story is the epitome of voodoo science.
Police are in the business of taking people to jail. I would know. They don't care about the science or the facts or even public safety for that matter. Their lives depend on statistics. The more arrests and citations they issue, even if for reasons debunked by science, the better their chances of promotion. That is how police, and ultimately the entire justice system work. They are losing the war against marijuana, the single easiest crime for them to arrest and prosecute. They are simply looking for new ways to continue a failed war against drugs, even if they have to create junk science to do it. They have to; their jobs depend on it.
http://www.businessinsider.com/hound-labs-marijuana-breathalyzer-2017-5
http://www.thealternativedaily.com/arizona-says-thc-does-not-mean-dui/
https://www.aaafoundation.org/impaired-driving-and-cannabis
Author - Cory Hughes / Twisted Purple Media.
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