A company in Oakland is collaborating with scientists from the University of California at Berkeley claims that there has been a significant breakthrough in the race to create a marijuana breathalyzer. The two have been working on this for a while, but now there has finally been new progress. Hound Labs Inc, whose now allowing their marijuana breathalyzer to also detect for marijuana, is one of the many companies hoping to benefit from marijuana laws relaxing throughout the nation.
On Wednesday, Hound Labs announced that it found an efficient way to measure THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana, “within one or two blows.” The device is portable and can determine whether or not a driver has been smoking marijuana. The concept is to surrogate a complex mix of blood and urine tests that take days, and cannot distinguish time of impairment with an easier method.
23 states have now allowed access to marijuana for medicinal use while four have allowed for recreational use with the addition of Washington D.C. What remains ridiculous is that marijuana is still illegal under federal law. Justin Trudeau, new Canadian Prime Minister, has promised to legalize recreational marijuana in Canada. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration stated earlier in the year that although marijuana can affect psychomotor skills and cognitive function, “not enough is known about how much is needed to affect driving performance.”
However, some states are not waiting to come to a decision on how much THC is too much to drive. Washington as well as Montana have made a limit of 5 nanograms/milliliter (ng/mL) and Pennsylvania has a 1 ng/mL limit.
“Right now the standards are completely arbitrary. I would argue that they are useless,” Mike Lynn, Hound Labs Chief Executive, said to Reuters, stating that current tests cannot determine the exact timing of digestion.
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