A breathalyzer is a device for estimating blood alcohol content (BAC) from a breath sample. (Photo : Reuters)
Many firms are developing cannabis or marijuana breathalyzer hoping that it will be the key for other states in the United States to dispel marijuana legalization's road safety issues. As more states are legalizing the use of cannabis and other states want to do the same, the concern on road safety is getting the public's attention.
Currently, law enforcers cannot start drafting the rules on how much level of marijuana ingestion will be considered legal as there is currently no means to test the amount of cannabis that a driver consumed. This is the reason why many firms started to develop a device that is comparable to Breathalyzer, which was initially invented by R.F. Borkenstein, to determine the alcohol concentration.
One of the firms who pursued the development of a "pot breathalyzer" was Cannabix Technologies Inc., a Canadian company founded by a retired Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer. According to Reuters, the Vancouver-based technology company claimed that they are close to the final phase of having a prototype.
The company is expecting to produce the first ever handheld "pot breathalyzer" that is quite the same with the device used to detect the alcohol consumption.
In a press release in June, Cannabix did not say anything regarding the product's release date to the market. Nevertheless, the prototype is still under the company's testing stage and is currently, not for third party use.
On the other hand, other companies and individuals are also trying to produce their own devices that can accurately detect THC or tetrahydrocannabinol, the chemical responsible for the psychological effects of marijuana.
Some of those contenders were the chemistry professor-PhD student tandem of Washington State University (WSU) and Colorado-based Lifeloc Technologies, Inc.
Lifeloc is already making alcohol breathalyzers but as for the current experiment of the company on their own "pot breathalyzer," they think they can only produce a device which can tell "a simple 'yes' or 'no' for the presence of THC at the time of the test."
However, the company's chief executive, Barry Knott said that the breathalyzer does not have a "quantitative evidential measure."
While some firms are eager to develop the cannabis breathalyzer, other states are not even interested to know how much THC is considered too much to affect the driving performance of an individual. For example, in Washington and Montana, they already fixed the limit to five nanograms/milliliter (ng/mL), while Pennsylvania considered one ng/mL as maximum.
In the end, it appears that the decision in setting the ceiling for marijuana intake is not science-based but political, according to Nicholas Lovrich, a WSU political scientist.
