By Jessica Rubery
Just about everyone has heard of police using a breathalyzer for detecting whether a person has been drinking alcohol, but could it be possible to detect if someone has recently consumed marijuana? Well, one company in California has created and begun testing a marijuana breathalyzer. The way the breathalyzer works is the same way an alcohol breathalyzer does except the marijuana breathalyzer detects Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. Further, similar to the alcohol breathalyzer the closer to the use of marijuana the higher the levels of THC that the breathalyzer will detect. For instance, the company began testing the breathalyzer by stopping people and asking them to submit voluntarily to the breathalyzer, without criminal action, and the company found that those who recently used marijuana had a higher lever and those who consumed marijuana in food products also tested positive. Steven Nelson, Pot Breathalyzer Hits the Street, U.S. News, (Sept. 13, 2016, 7:59 AM), . Lastly, the company is looking into combining the marijuana and alcohol breathalyzer into one component: but what does it mean for changes in the law?
In Washington, the state legislature budgeted for research into the marijuana breathalyzer in 2015. H.B. 2376, 2016 Leg., 64th Sess. (WA 2016). Since Washington is a state that has legalized marijuana, it makes sense that they would be willing to invest state money into researching the marijuana breathalyzer in order to help quiet the opposition. Further, a state might be interested in investing in research for marijuana breathalyzers or even purchasing them for public safety reasons. For instance, similar to breathalyzers used for alcohol, marijuana breathalyzers will give police the ability to enforce driving under the influence laws. Granted state legislatures will have to enact laws that make it a crime to operate while under the influence of marijuana if it is not a crime already, but the breathalyzer will give police the tools needed.
With more and more states pushing for legalization of marijuana, the breathalyzer created by the California could ease the process of legalizing marijuana. For example, while the breathalyzer is not fool proof, creating a mandate that if a person refuses the marijuana breathalyzer test, they are presumed under the influence could help deter people from driving under the influence. Further, through some more research, state legislatures could enact legislation that would make a certain test result to be the legal limit in order to operate a vehicle, similar to laws that currently exist for alcohol.
Now, legalization supporters have been saying this for some time, treat marijuana like alcohol, but until recently, there was not an exact way to do so. The marijuana breathalyzer brings a change to the argument about legalization because this new breathalyzer causes the classic argument that there is no way to test a person immediately for marijuana to become moot. This development changes the marijuana debate and while it is in only in the early stages, the promising results that the California Company has had, it appears as though it could be implemented throughout the country. At this point, the company is still in the testing phase, but they have begun collaborating with law enforcement to test the breathalyzers in the field to ensure that the breathalyzer lives up to its laboratory test results. However, it appears as though this new breathalyzer could change the way we discuss marijuana use and legalization.
Student Bio: Jessica is a Lead Blog Editor on the Journal of High Technology Law. She is currently a 3L at Suffolk Law. She possesses a B.S. in Legal Studies and Foreign Language from Roger Williams University.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog are the views of the author alone and do not represent the views of JHTL or Suffolk University Law School.
