[Noah_SannTek]

I wonder, if we got the opportunity to talk to the folks that invented the alcohol breathalyzers, if they had the same kind of pushback? Alcohol breathalyzers help deter drunk drivers, but there is nothing currently out there to help deter cannabis-impaired drivers. There's definitely an education piece associated with this.

[grawprog]

I see marijuana and alcohol compared a lot with various things, that's the point where I stop participating in the conversation. It's pointless to compare two drugs with wildly different effects, onsets, durations and side effects. I disagree heavily with them being used as a point of comparison when it comes to effects on motor skills, coordination and general dangerous behaviour. I've personally imbibed both enough, been around enough people intoxicated on one or the other to know they're not comparable.

Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant that that, in high doses, causes an extreme degredation to motor skills, coordination, and thought patterns and can cause a loss of conciousness.

I agree there should be safety regulations in regards to weed but, breathalyzers and typical drug and alcohol tests are not an effective way to gauge the level of cannabis intoxication for an indiviual.

[reroute1]

Maybe, but also comparing driving under the influence of alcohol with driving under the influence of cannabis is definitely not congruent.

[Noah_SannTek]

This gets us to a weird gray zone of.. how impaired is too impaired? Many would say that any level of impaired is not ok, and I would definitely agree. Check out what the national highway traffic safety administration has to say about this: https://feeldifferentdrivedifferent.org/

[anon9001]

I'd rather ride with a stoned driver than a drunk driver any day. I'd also prefer a stoned driver over an elderly driver or a sleep deprived driver. And if I had the choice between a totally sober driver or a driver on stimulants, I'd take the stimulant driver.

If this was really about reducing risk on the road, we should somehow incentivize people like OP to work on the self-driving car problem, rather than come up with a device to catch stoned drivers. Think how much brain power and law enforcement time is going to be taken up dealing with stoned drivers. The rational thing to do would be to let people drive stoned, arrest those who are visibly impaired and can't perform a field sobriety test, and focus our efforts on getting AI to replace all human drivers.

[reroute1]

-> Many would say that any level of impaired is not ok Many would also disagree, including the law which in my state allows a BAC of up to .08 to not be charged.

In general my opinion is that .08 BAC sounds reasonable and an equivalent of MJ "could" be also. But most cases that would be a huge amount of MJ, and still doesn't relate to the effects noticed at high consumption of alcohol. IE I have never seen someone smoke so much they black out and cannot control themselves. Whereas that's happening every night people go out drinking.

My view is that there is no good way to measure this universally among all people, and MJ "impaired" driving is a non-issue compared with Drunk Driving.

Should we test people for driving on caffeiene? What about after eating too much and being sleepy? These are effects on par and just judgement calls people need to make. If the officer can smell weed\finds it then that seems appropriate and enough.

EDIT: To the points below about people passing out or cops calling 911 on themselves that speaks to the incredible variety of experience people have and what someone might experience their first time with edibles. It's not comparable to the effects smoking has on regular users, and not something anyone should be doing while driving, but how do you test for that with a Breathalyzer?

Fair points but I think this testing is only about smoking? That would seem to give even less reason to support this kind of testing since it misses the most egregious cases of edibles. I think anyone would agree that people in that kind of state are in no condition to drive, but again in my experience way outside of normal usage and not something I have ever seen. If the test took that into account alright, but it seems like these breathalyzer would be detecting a far lower threshold

Double Edit: "Theyre working on it" when it comes to edibles....

[Fogest]

Weed is also in other forms like edibles too which are quite potent. I have seen many people who have smoked excessive amounts, or had way too many edibles. I have personally working in the event medical field dealt with countless people who are puking and unconscious due to weed.

It definitely is not anywhere near as bad as other drugs impairment wise, but it definitely can be quite dangerous to drive on.

And yes, being sleepy while driving is also super dangerous.

[ryanmercer]

>Weed is also in other forms like edibles too which are quite potent. I have seen many people who have smoked excessive amounts, or had way too many edibles. I have personally working in the event medical field dealt with countless people who are puking and unconscious due to weed.

Every now and then you also hear that a law enforcement officer got high and called 911 panicking, googling "cop calls 911 high" brings up a couple of Canadian officers and a Michigan officer on the first page.

facepalm

If you can let that sort of judgement slip, you think there aren't people out there getting baked and going for a drive, or now that you can easily vape away just driving down the street vaping?

A friend recently passed away and after the funeral a bunch of us went back to the house they grew up in to just hang out and talk about old times. Just about everyone there was getting extremely high, forgetting what they were saying mid sentence, taking the better part of a half hour to scratch off a single scratch off ticket, having the goofy slouch where your head goes way out in front of you... and then leaving, in their vehicles still quite high.

I mean, if you can't have a conversation without completely forgetting what you were saying in the middle of a word... you can't tell me that isn't going to affect your driving. You might just sit at a stop sign for 5 minutes because you forgot it was your turn to go, but you also might be like "hey I'm gonna check Facebook" while you're driving down the interstate.

If I had to choose, I'd rather be on the road with drunk drivers than high drivers. People that are drunk often have slowed reaction time, people that are high can easily entirely forget what they are doing and start doing something else.

[reroute1]

I disagree wholeheartedly, but even if I agreed with you that doesn't mean that this breathalyzer is a good solution:

To the points about people passing out or cops calling 911 on themselves that speaks to the incredible variety of experience people have and what someone might experience their first time with edibles. It's not comparable to the effects smoking has on regular users, and not something anyone should be doing while driving, but how do you test for that with a Breathalyzer?

Fair points but I think this testing is only about smoking? That would seem to give even less reason to support this kind of testing since it misses the most egregious cases of edibles. I think anyone would agree that people in that kind of state are in no condition to drive, but again in my experience way outside of normal usage and not something I have ever seen. If the test took that into account alright, but it seems like these breathalyzer would be detecting a far lower threshold

Edit: "Theyre working on it" when it comes to edibles....