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This November, several US states will vote whether to legalize marijuana use, joining more than 20 states that already allow some form of cannabis use. This has prompted a need for effective tools for police to determine on the spot whether people are driving under the influence. Stanford researchers have devised a potential solution, applying magnetic nanotechnology, previously used as a cancer screen, to create what could be the first practical roadside test for marijuana intoxication.
While police are trying out potential tools, no device currently on the market has been shown to quickly provide a precise measurement of a driver's marijuana intoxication as effectively as a breathalyzer gauges alcohol intoxication. THC, the drug's most potent psychoactive agent, is commonly screened for in laboratory blood or urine tests – not very helpful for an officer in the field. The Stanford device might function as a practical "potalyzer" because it can quickly detect not just the presence of THC in a person's saliva, but also measure its concentration.
http://phys.org/news/2016-09-potalyzer-roadside-saliva-marijuana-intoxication.html
[Source]: Stanford University
[Abstract]: Small Molecule Detection in Saliva Facilitates Portable Tests of Marijuana Abuse
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday September 10 2016, @07:30AM
Either their invention doesn't work, which obviously is a killer with the 'we make it work' crowd...
or...
Maybe it does work and a lot of their fellow engineers are going to suddenly have to start being much more afraid of cops when they are doing nothing wrong.
http://norml.org/library/item/marijuana-and-driving-a-review-of-the-scientific-evidence
The whole idea that stoned drivers are going to suddenly become a major problem in states that legalize pot is just cartoony in its lack of seriousness. Yes, I'm sure it's possible to get too stoned to drive. But the way that is most likely to express itself is by doing 18 in the 20mph zone where most people do 30. I know, let's treat that like drunk driving, and let's test everyone that gets pulled over for a paperwork infraction on the spot too, that'll teach those damn hippies to legalize it!
Spare me.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday September 10 2016, @09:23AM
I have a feeling these guys won't be very popular at professional gatherings
All the professionals I work with regard drugs like marijuana with contempt. Before anyone mentions alcohol and tobacco, they mostly regard those with contempt too, especially tobacco, apart from a moderate amount of alcohol to be sociable on occasion. You and I obviously move in different professional circles.
I'm sure it's possible to get too stoned to drive.
I'll take your word for it, hence the reason for testing. I gather that the stuff creates euphoria and the feeling that nothing could possibly go wrong - doesn't sound to me like a good attitude for driving.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 10 2016, @10:01AM
>All the professionals I work with regard drugs like marijuana with contempt.
Not a programmer then?
>You and I obviously move in different professional circles.
How do you manage with that stick so far up your arse? Doesn't it get in the way?
>I gather that the stuff creates euphoria and the feeling that nothing could possibly go wrong
Oh I say! Jeeves, I say Jeeves! Do be a dear and pack this cone for me, do!
Euphoria - yes
Nothing going wrong? - Hmm no not really, if anything n00bs will often get "the fear", and if you wished to understand that term I would point you at Withnail and I, except you'd obviously hate the movie.
> - doesn't sound to me like a good attitude for driving.
Nah as 't'other dude said, it actually seems to make you very very careful.
Hugs!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by art guerrilla on Saturday September 10 2016, @10:35AM
ahhh, another moral scold has outed themselves, self-nuked, so to speak...
um, son, your every utterance proves you are either a young-and-stupid (i know, redundant), or a blockhead incapable (and not wanting) to learn anything outside of your cloistered, oh-so-perfect world...
you know NOTHING about pot and the effects it produces, and -again- you evince a strong hint you are not interested in learning...
you have made up your mind that, um, drugs are *bad*, mmm-kay, and that is as far as you want to take that line of 'reasoning'...
there, one more thing not requiring any thought because you've got it all down pat...
in short, urine idjit...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 10 2016, @04:19PM
what kind of suck ass has never smoked weed? wow! maybe you're a government comment bot?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 10 2016, @05:18PM
I haven't, because I never had the desire to. It's funny how you would probably get angry at someone if they mocked you for having smoked weed, but if you mock someone for personally choosing to not do so then it's okay.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 10 2016, @08:01PM
what kind of suck ass has never smoked weed?
An "unpopular social outcast loser" like the first-poster who doesn't have the social connections to buy weed if it's not sold over-the-counter.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday September 11 2016, @06:03AM
No, euphoria and the feeling that everything might go wrong. A heavy user is fine driving, perhaps a bit slow. Someone who isn't used to smoking is more likely to go dangerously slow while they're looking for somewhere to pull over and have a couple of coffees. The exception is when mixing with alcohol, where the pot may intensify the alcohol and if quite drunk, a good chance of falling asleep at the wheel, sorta like putting in 16 hour days and commuting.
(Score: 1) by malloc_free on Saturday September 10 2016, @09:42AM
We can now smoke weed legally, but we won't drive under the influence. Fair enough, regardless of the side of the fence you are on. I wish people on the anti side would have a more mature attitude towards drugs in general, rather than the knee-jerk "Drugs are bad, ok" response you often get. Its my body, damn you, if I wanna get stoned in the privacy of my home, I fuckin' will. I am not a member of the country I live in, I form my own country of one, and it turns out that most of the rules that the country that surrounds me are the same as the ones in my personal country. i.e. those regarding not impinging on the rights of my fellow man. If anyone has a problem with that, they can come and invade my country, and I will act like anyone would when someone tries that shit.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday September 10 2016, @10:50AM
The whole idea that stoned drivers are going to suddenly become a major problem in states that legalize pot is just cartoony in its lack of seriousness. Yes, I'm sure it's possible to get too stoned to drive.
And there's the justification for such a test. It's law enforcement's job to make sure you are legally competent to drive including not being intoxicated by various sorts of recreational drugs. Either we use an objective test (which probably would be, like the breathalyzer, used in conjunction with a more reliable test at police headquarters) or it's just "Hey, he looked stoned" expert witness testimony which pulls you in.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday September 10 2016, @02:31PM
Why not make the arrests and convictions based on *behavior* rather than chemistry, hmm? What's so wrong with that? It worked quite well for until one day the million mad moms with their bad math and bad arguments and started us on this slippery slope.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 10 2016, @05:01PM
You mean you want to punish people who are driving dangerously, rather than punishing people who ingested a certain substance even if they were not driving dangerously? That's insane, and you're insane.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Saturday September 10 2016, @06:13PM
Why not make the arrests and convictions based on *behavior* rather than chemistry, hmm?
Because you don't know why the behavior is happening. Some reasons are not illegal, but are life threatening. A test can separate stroke victims from someone high on pot.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Saturday September 10 2016, @08:30PM
And if there is any question as to someones physical state and context we need someone trained in medicine to be answering the question, not beat cops.
Alcohol is a good wedge issue, because the idea is really at it's most reasonable there. Inebriated persons actually emit alcohol into the air around them, you can detect that without equipment, and (in large enough doses, at least) it simultaneously makes you much worse at tasks like driving but gives you a feeling of invincibility that encourages risk-taking.
None of that is true with THC though. The one study I saw done on this, it was in the UK IIRC, had extremely stoned people driving on a closed course and they just slowed down and got over-careful, while the alcohol group didn't have to drink very much to start doing the opposite - driving at higher speeds and more recklessly.
Anecdotally, I remember a guy I grew up with, he always had an open beer under his seat since the day he started driving. He didn't get sloshed he just nursed it, and he never wrecked, never got in trouble, perfect driving record for years. But over the years tolerance went the way of the dodo in this country and he knew it was getting more and more dangerous, and one day he just up and quit drinking. Within a week he had wrecked his previously pristine sports car, not once, but twice. The second time he ran it into one of the poles that supported the covering on his covered parking space. Had the darndest time learning to drive sober.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 11 2016, @02:39AM
And if there is any question as to someones physical state and context we need someone trained in medicine to be answering the question, not beat cops.
That's what paramedics are for.
Anyway, here's my summarized position on the matter. Determining whether a driver is intoxicated by alcohol or other drug is a legitimate role of traffic law enforcement. A reliable chemical test which can be backed by an even more reliable blood test at a nearby police office is superior to expert witness testimony. (The police office doesn't have to have a good sense of smell either.) And it provides a means for a police officer to rule out some common forms of intoxication on the spot while evaluating a driver's behavior.
Inebriated persons actually emit alcohol into the air around them, you can detect that without equipment, and (in large enough doses, at least) it simultaneously makes you much worse at tasks like driving but gives you a feeling of invincibility that encourages risk-taking.
Or they're suffering from diabetes-caused ketoacidosis [wikipedia.org] which smells like alcohol-caused ketoacidosis. Or they're the designated driver who hasn't drunk anything all night, but had some drunk spill their drink on them or they just used an alcohol-based hand cleaner.
and they just slowed down and got over-careful
Which is in itself a dangerous condition, so sure, the police can ticket for that. But the behavior also indicates that they are driving while intoxicated which looks to me to be more dangerous even in the absence of obvious dangerous driving behaviors.
Within a week he had wrecked his previously pristine sports car, not once, but twice. The second time he ran it into one of the poles that supported the covering on his covered parking space. Had the darndest time learning to drive sober.
Recovering from severe alcoholism is not an easy thing. But I can't help but wonder what the point of the story is. Driving while drunk may be less incapacitating than driving while in the early stages of recovering from severe alcoholism, but it's not better than driving sober.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday September 12 2016, @03:05AM
But that's not what was going on here. This guy was not a 'severe alcoholic' by any stretch of the imagination. I never once saw him drunk. He'd sip on a beer, on the weekend nights he'd be out roughly 9 hours, from ~6-3am, and drink maybe 3 beers in that time. Weekdays he drank even less. Only in todays absolutist 'zero tolerance' nightmare would anyone even consider calling that an alcoholic. He could probably have blown legal on a breathalizer at any time, but he still would have gone to jail for driving with an open container.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 12 2016, @01:49PM
Bonus points for saying he wasn't driving sober, but he wasn't driving drunk either. I get that there's some space between alcohol-free and falling down drunk. But you shouldn't be driving at that level of lack of sobriety, if you're far enough along that spectrum that your behavior changes when you stop drinking behind the wheel.
This also shows one of the problems with using behavioral observations to ticket someone for driving while intoxicated. They might be able to hide a severe impairment from casual observation. After all, this guy had you fooled even after he wrecked his car twice.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday September 12 2016, @03:55PM
Yes, there absolutely is. Alcohol has very different effects at different dosage levels, and users of alcohol often regulate their dosage very precisely, even if only subconsciously. In some people, low concentrations of it can actually *improve* results on motor skills tests. The high strung nervous type sometimes becomes accustomed to using very small amounts of alcohol to 'settle down' and relax and their performance on all kinds of tests will improve with low levels of alcohol.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?