Although drunk drivers are much easier to detect than drivers who are high, there might be a solution for police to detect high drivers.
With the legalization of marijuana in many states, more and more people have been consuming it, even right before they are about to drive. However, even though this substance is able to be used, every state has a law against users being under the influence when on the road.
Of course, this is to keep roads safe, even though I’m sure these DUI laws are among the most broken in the country.
For drunk drivers, there are field tests to tell if a driver is intoxicated, such as a breathalyzer or having them walk in a straight line, but detecting if someone is high is much harder. With recent technology being tested, there might finally be a way similar to a breathalyzer to detect if someone is high.
A breathalyzer works by reacting to the alcohol in your breath with the liquid chemicals within the breathalyzer, detecting your blood alcohol content with a photocell to see how much the chemicals change color from a red-orange color to green, according to Healthline.
Although the marijuana-detecting device looks like a Keurig coffee machine, what it does is much different than providing a yummy cup of coffee. The driver has to provide saliva to be put into the machine that detects the cannabinoid in marijuana that makes somebody high, also known as THC.
While this can impair a person’s ability to drive by slowing reaction times and speed, it really depends on the tolerance of the person who consumed the drug. Some people may feel more extreme effects than others even though they consumed the same amount of marijuana, which raises the question of whether this THC-detecting technology is even needed.
It should be implemented even with this fact. There are people who consume alcohol enough that they can still drive proficiently. Do I approve of drunk driving because of this fact? No, definitely not, but it’s the same case with the use of marijuana. Not everyone is going to be completely incompetent or handicapped when driving under the influence, but there are definitely people who should not be allowed to be behind the wheel after using either of these substances because of the difference in substance tolerance from person to person.
Of course, this THC-detecting technology was just being tested for the last year and is far from perfect. Unlike alcohol, THC can stay in a person’s system for a long time after they use marijuana, for hours or even days after. Detecting it in someone’s saliva doesn’t mean they just smoked and could lead to a false DUI charge.
The device I mentioned above is not the only technology that was tested to detect if someone is high. There are goggles to measure a driver’s pupil size and movement in Missouri, something that is affected by THC.
In Colorado, there are studies on developing THC breathalyzers, which I think would help to detect how recently the substance was consumed.
There are even apps to test a driver’s cognitive abilities in Illinois and Vermont, probably full of tests I would still fail when I’m sober. All I’m saying is that saying the alphabet backward is harder to do than it seems.
Even with these developing technologies, officers are still being trained to see signs of drivers under the influence without the help of gadgets, which is great. No one is safe on the roads with somebody drunk or high, and with how it is slowly spreading to more and more people, you can never be too safe.
Hayley Doda can be contacted at
hayley@kscequinox.com
