New Breathalyzer for Drugs and Marijuana DUI Detection

Police may soon be able to conduct roadside testing for impaired driving due to Marijuana and numerous other drugs.

Currently, drug and Marijuana DUI can only be detected in a driver’s blood stream through chemical testing such as DUI blood or urine tests. These methods are intrusive, and sometimes take weeks for the results to be processed.

The new hand-held drug DUI detection device was designed by scientists in Sweden and known as “SensAbues”. It works much like an alcohol breath test which requires the subject to breath into a mouthpiece to enable the filtration and entrapment of certain particles to be examined by police.

The device is said to provide instant results by analyzing a person’s breath samples. The methods used involve chromatography-mass spectrometry. The process isolates and detects specific chemicals and compounds that exist in a person’s airway, that are captured during exhalation of breathing. These bioaerosol particles are then collected and analyzed through a uniquely designed filtration method, to reveal compounds, metabolites or specific drugs found in a subject’s bodily system.

It was reported that the device can detect Marijuana, Cocaine, Valium, Heroin, Morphine, and a host of other drugs.

Critics of the new technology report that in at least one study 23 percent of the samples tested were incorrect, in that they revealed the existence of drugs that in fact, had not been used by the subject.

Other controversial results included those specified drugs were found in a person’s blood stream over 24 hours since the subject had taken them.

Despite the skepticism, the inventors and manufactures of the product claim that the device produces results that are legally defensible.

It may take some time and more studies before we see our local police and law enforcement agencies using this new technology for detection of drug DUI. But it is clear that Law Enforcement Agencies in Arizona are committed to expanding its DUI detection resources to include all state of the art available to combat and prosecute drug and alcohol impaired drivers.