Launch HN: SannTek (YC S19) – Breathalyzer for Cannabis - <AUTHOR> Hey HN, I'm Noah, co-founder of SannTek (https://www.sannteklabs.com). We're building a breathalyzer for cannabis.
I bet some of you have had the same idea cross your mind that we had: "If we have a breathalyzer for alcohol, why don't we have a breathalyzer for cannabis?" We're nanotechnology engineering alumni from the University of Waterloo. Two factors led into us deciding to pursue this idea: 1. Cannabis was being legalized across Canada and police were completely ill-prepared, so we saw an opportunity to help; 2. the science required to make this device exist was particularly interesting.
Alcohol breathalyzers are fundamentally a fuel cell where the alcohol in your breath sample is oxidized, which then produces an electrical current that the device then translates to BAC. For alcohol, this works because of Henry's Law, which says that at any given temperature the ratio between the concentration of alcohol in the blood and that in the alveolar air in the lungs is constant.
Cannabis is a very different beast. Not only is it a non-volatile, fat-soluble molecule, but the mechanism in which THC (the psychoactive component of cannabis) appears in your breath isn't super straight forward. Also, it is present in much lower concentrations in the breath compared to alcohol. Whereas a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08% (the legal limit in most states) might result in a concentration of 208 ppm of ethanol in the breath, a similarly impairing dose of cannabis results in 0.00001 ppm of the drug in breath.
Detecting such a low concentration is difficult, and as a result, cannabis drug use has been detected in a variety of sub-optimal ways. The state of the art is a blood draw, followed by detection of THC at a toxicology laboratory using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. While accurate and well-validated, this approach has several problems. First of all, since THC is fat-soluble it remains in a person's body much longer than alcohol, especially if that person is a frequent user. Frequent users have been known to have detectable THC in their blood one week after beginning abstinence. These people are clearly not impaired all week but could be arrested and charged with a DUI based on many states laws across the US. Interestingly, police have the opposite problem with infrequent users. For most people, the concentration of THC in their system will decay quickly post-consumption. It takes around 2 hours (at best) for a police officer to get a blood draw from a suspect. At this point, many people will no longer have detectable THC in their system. Our device solves both these problems for police. Our breathalyzer uses an ultra-sensitive immunosensor to detect the minute concentration of THC in breath. Breath is the better medium for cannabis testing for several reasons. First of all, THC concentration in breath for both frequent users and infrequent users decays below detectable levels within 3-4 hours post-consumption and we have never detected THC in the baseline for any of our subjects. So our device does not incorrectly identify frequent users as impaired as blood testing can. Secondly, the breath tests can be administered quickly roadside, eliminating the risk of concentration decay seen with blood draws.
Our device comes with a reusable analyzer and a single-use disposable cartridge. It costs us $2 to make a cartridge, and police are willing to pay $20 per test. An individual will breathe into the mouthpiece, and our filter system will collect exhaled breath particles (specifically non-VOCs). Currently, we manually "extract" the THC off of the filter into a solvent liquid, but in the future, this will be automated using novel microfluidics. The solvent, with the captured THC, is then transferred to the surface of the sensor- which is an electrochemical immunoassay. When the THC is there, the output signal is different than when the THC is not there (happy to dive further into this in the comments if people are interested).
We haven't had enough resources to run any formal trials yet to publish data, but that is changing this year. We've hired a contract research organization, (shout out Curebase), to help us run our very first clinical trial with blood draws. We're going to be looking at the correlation between breath and blood concentrations, at various time intervals after consumption, to validate (or invalidate!) our preliminary in house data.
Selling to the police is notoriously difficult, but we're imagining a world where there are one of our devices in every police car in North America. This weekend we exhibited at the IACP DAID and the response from the attendees was great! We have over 30 police departments across North America that have expressed interest in purchasing the device and that number is increasing every day.
We're excited to hear all your questions and feedback! I encourage any questions you may have for us :) <comment><USER2> Sounds like it's well-intentioned, but I'm afraid that given the incentives of all parties involved here, and the complexity of the technology, there will be a lot of false positives.

It's obvious that the police will want a device that produces more convictions, no point in disputing that.

I'm wondering if you can elaborate on what incentives your company has to produce accurate devices, against your customer's unstated preferences. What's keeping you in check? Are you worried about class action lawsuits from victims of false positives, if it were independently proven that your device is overly sensitive?

<comment><USER3> You raise a good point. Interestingly, your comments run contrary to what a lot of law enforcement officers have said to us.

In general, the police are hyper vigilant about buying only devices that are independently validated to be very accurate. Every conversation we have had has eventually lead to "is it NHTSA approved?". The reason for this need for third party validation is that the police are incredibly court room sensitive. If there is any chance a defense attorney would be able to pull out a study showing low specificity or sensitivity for a device, the police will simply not buy it. Third party validation gives them that guarantee.

You are right that the police want more convictions (or less time consuming convictions), but the way they do that is by having very accurate devices that are defensible in court, not inaccurate devices that risk cases being thrown out. That is why making sure our device has low false positive is very important.

<comment><USER4> I admire what you're doing, and hope you can adhere to scientific integrity while developing and selling your product, but that simply isn't true. At least in Washington state. A few years ago Washington State purchased a whole bunch of Draeger 9510 (alcohol breathalyzer) units without ever having tested them. After two years of sitting unused, the warranties were going to expire and they finally got around to testing them, and purchasing extended warranties at that point. However their initial tests failed multiple accuracy tests to the point that the state's lab halted testing, since it was so off. A few months later Draeger patched the firmware and OS application (the breath/alcohol measurement firmware being written by a single contractor in Texas, and versioned as 0.7) and while testing looked better, it still wasn't accurate and they just pushed it out the door for deployment...they had already bought them, after all. I'll link the records below...they didn't even have the correct versions of the software and firmware accounted for and signed off, which led to other problems (and Draegar has had other problems of accuracy in other court cases, such as Florida, but that's a side tangent).

My point is, a lot of state governments (at least in the US) spend money first and verify later, and 'verify' can be a damnably loose term. Loose enough to violate WAC 448-15-020 (in Washington state's case) which requires a 'reasonable degree of scientific accuracy'.

EDIT: Apparently the original link (below) is no longer available in WSP's records, which is interesting. You can view the document via archive.org, here

[https://web.archive.org/web/20170211114622/http://www.wsp.wa...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170211114622/http://www.wsp.wa.gov/breathtest/docs/webdms/Draeger/Valid_Docs/Draeger%20Validation%20Approval.pdf)

original (defunct) [http://www.wsp.wa.gov/breathtest/docs/webdms/Draeger/Valid_D...](http://www.wsp.wa.gov/breathtest/docs/webdms/Draeger/Valid_Docs/Draeger%20Validation%20Approval.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the info. Definitely something we have not run into or considered yet. I guess we just naively assumed that all police precincts were as scrupulous as those we talked to :(.

There is some stuff we can do, however. For instance, we can directly build the QC schedule into the device so it does not work unless you get it calibrated. We can also have QC cartridges that have a barcode that the device reads to make sure you actually ran a calibration check properly and the device passed.

We were so focused on internal methods for making the device accurate, but maybe we should put some thought into how we can make sure the police use it properly.

<comment><USER5> >I guess we just naively assumed that all police precincts were as scrupulous as those we talked to :(.

Bless your heart.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't understand the negativity in many of the comments here. I'm all for legalization of marijuana, but I actually think that the inability to test for people driving high is a very reasonable argument _against_ legalization. I generally feel that people should be able to make their own choices, but not if those choices involve driving a 3000 pound piece of metal down the highway while impaired.

Yes, we need to be certain that this isn't giving false positives. But if anything, this is step towards _more_ legalization efforts on the whole (and fewer people driving high).

<comment><USER7> I get that breathalyzers give you a nice simple, relatively objective number to point at, but shouldn't we be testing for actual impairment rather than the presence of chemicals which may or may not be an indicator of impairment?

<comment><USER6> Yes, in an ideal world we would do that. But by the time we come up with a perfect test that can be done roadside by police to determine driving impairment, that has very few false positives and holds up in court, we'll most likely have self driving cars and this won't be an issue anyway.

I understand that everyone reacts differently to different drugs. Dale Earnhardt can probably be a little tipsy and still drive better than me. But even if you are an above average driver, it's still immoral (and I think should be illegal) to use substances that will increase your risk of killing someone else in a car accident, even if you are having a small amount of those substances that just brings you down to average driver levels.

Car accidents are one of the leading causes of death. It's an inherently risky activity to be doing every day. But we've structured our society in a way that makes it unavoidable. Given that it's dangerous even for sober people, I don't think we should be giving people the right to drive under circumstances that make it even _more_ dangerous.

<comment><USER8> Lots of behaviors impair your driving ability. A study found that being dehydrated caused the same number of driving errors as being drunk [0]. I'm sure it would be easy to make a field sobriety test for blood water content, but they don't, because safety isn't the real reason these laws get made. It's just public pressure to enforce moral values.

[0]: [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11547199/Not- dr...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11547199/Not-drinking- enough-water-has-same-effect-as-drink-driving.html)

<comment><USER9> That study [0] had so many flaws it's not even funny.

1\. It only had 12 participants 2\. One of those participants was excluded from the final results 3\. They didn't test the participants' (or a separate group's) driving ability while under the influence of alcohol (they used a simulator, so it would have been fine), and so you really can't use the results to make any comparisons between dehydration and alcohol use 4\. The study was funded by the European Hydration Institute

[0]: [https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace- jspui/bitstream/2134/20400...](https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace- jspui/bitstream/2134/20400/1/Watson%20et%20al%202015%20-%20Mild%20hypohydration%20increases%20the%20frequency%20of%20driver%20errors%20during%20a%20prolonged%2C%20monotonous%20driving%20task.pdf)

<comment><USER10> I kind of love that biased test results funded by Big Water are a thing.

<comment><USER11> Oh trust me, "Big Water" is very much a thing. I've met a guy who runs a coke bottling plant; he could hardly believe his luck. They literally just run the existing stuff dry, and it's got massive margins.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've been a daily cannabis user for over a decade. I have a prescription for this, like millions of others with prescriptions for psychoactive medications without driving limitations. Would you send someone to prison for driving because they took their Adderall that morning? Cannabis is not like alcohol in regard to impairment of motor function and decision-making under the influence. Surely the same concentrations of particulate correlate to different levels of impairment in different individuals. Of course it is possible for individuals to be impaired by cannabis to the extent that driving would be dangerous. There are many factors. I'm wary of a device that purports to determine actions as dangerous based on the the measure of some particulate in the breath.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for your feedback. It is really valuable to get the perspective of a frequent cannabis user. Cannabis tolerance is definitely a huge factor in determining whether or not someone is impaired. As a daily user, I am sure you are fine to drive after having used cannabis (although this is not legal advice :) ). However, people forget that there are significant tolerance effects for alcohol as well. There are people who can blow a 0.15% (well over the legal limit of 0.08%) and not exhibit any impairment symptoms. The key is finding a limit that allows police to identify actually impaired drivers while giving those with tolerance enough leeway to avoid being falsely charged. The scariest thing for frequent users is the blood legal limits being proposed in Canada and across the US, give that blood can have detectable levels of cannabis up to a week after abstinence. That is why one of our big focuses is finding a replacement for blood testing.

<comment><USER12> Thanks for your reply and engaging in this sort of discourse. I agree with all of your points, and also feel that technology in this area can help in conjunction with other indicators and tests to determine dangerously impaired driving. Any improvement over the existing testing methodology and legislation where some blood concentration possibly present from the week prior serves as enough for a felony conviction seems well warranted!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Great job to the founders, awesome to see more cool companies out of the UW nano program.

Curious why all the negativity, perhaps people are unaware that cannabis actively DOES impair driving to dangerous levels. Also, as this startup is from Canada I'm almost certain the mindframe of the founders is to develop a device that makes legalization EASIER, not allowing police to use it catch and arrest people on the street who they think are high.

One issue we have been dealing with in Canada is how to regulate driving after consuming cannabis. A zero tolerance policy for smoking + driving within _days_ is unreasonable and thus will be ineffective. This device and the research behind it looks like could help regulators and police catch people who are dangerously high while not arresting those who happened to smoke much earlier.

<comment><USER14> Do you have any proof that cannabis impairs driving?

<comment><USER15> Here is a good overview of dozens of studies that have performed on subject.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2722956/#S3titl...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2722956/#S3title)

The tl;dr is Cannabis absolutely impairs the core skills you use when driving, but also raises your awareness of your impairment so those under the influence tend to drive more cautiously. The result is in simulator studies cannabis shows a clear negative effect, but in functional studies, its more of a wash.

<comment><USER14> Please fully read and understand the resource you linked

> Experienced smokers who drive on a set course show almost no functional > impairment under the influence of marijuana, except when it is combined with > alcohol.

And the conclusion that the lack of functional impairment is due to increased awareness of impairment is merely speculation and is not based on any empirical result.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Given that marijuana arrests disproportionally target people of color, have you considered the ethical implications of bringing your product to market? The accuracy of your device doesn't affect how or on whom it will be used.

<comment> core-questions Is it that they disproportionately target PoC, or are they simply smoking and driving more often and getting caught for it? Do we really expect every single crime statistic to show a completely perfect, proportionate representation of the host population's ethnic makeup?

<comment><USER17> PoC are disproportionately pulled over by police.

EDIT: And that means you'll never get accurate numbers on consumption/offense rates. So using those numbers is fully questionable.

<comment> core-questions How do you know it's disproportionate? What if they're actually speeding / breaking traffic laws / driving unmaintained vehicles more often?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> So many naysayers here, many of which probably aren't sharing the road with cannabis consuming drivers in a region where it is 100% legal like here in Canada.

I've consumed it many times, and I know how impaired I'd be behind the wheel. It terrifies me to think of all the idiots who are probably out there driving while stoned, pretending they're "perfectly fine."

EDIT: cool, these guys are around the corner from where I'm sitting (Google Waterloo) in our old office building. Best of luck!

<comment><USER18> It's legal where I live and the drivers on the road have not changed significantly. For those opposed to legal cannabis use, it's easy to blame any traffic infraction on cannabis. I don't think we have data available that backs up that hypothesis. In areas where cannabis has been legalized for recreational use, the incidence of traffic accidents has remained the same.

[https://www.nber.org/papers/w24417](https://www.nber.org/papers/w24417)

<comment><USER19> Not opposed to legal cannabis at all, but as a cyclist, I'm _very_ opposed to impaired driving whether it's booze, pot, or staring at a mobile phone.

<comment><USER18> I'm a cyclist as well and impairment via cell-phone or hands-free call has been the most threatening for myself personally. And every parking lot ever is liking gambling with my life.

<comment><USER19> I'd agree - but probably because it seems to be so common compared to drunk or high people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> A given level of THC affects some a lot more than others. There are people who feel extremely "high" with 20 milligrams, and others who feel nothing. I do not believe you have a solution to this problem. The only thing a police officer should be permitted to do is give a field sobriety test. These devices are going to create more problems than they solve.

<comment><USER10> Field sobriety tests are far worse than something objective like this. If a cop has it in for you, you are going to fail the sobriety test regardless of how impaired you actually are.

<comment><USER21> You can define clearly the behaviors (or lack thereof) that indicate impairment. You can make it mandatory to record these tests in case you go to court. These values spit out by the breathalyzers are arbitrary and they do not take any other and crucial factors into account.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> tj-teej I remember reading a story about a Grandmother who ate a strong pot brownie everyday for medical reasons and it had little noticeable effect on her.

We know there's a direct correlation between alcohol levels and driving impairment, but I've not seen evidence for this link with THC. Are there studies that have found this? (Please forgive my ignorance...)

If someone uses X amount of marijuana (what this tech can establish), do we know that this will always have effect Y on the driver?

For example I know people who are heavy marijuana smokers who can smoke a whole joint and you'd never know whereas someone right next to them will take one puff and lose their mind.

<comment><USER22> Excellent point. I'm not sure how "fixed" the correlation is for alcohol though. Someone who almost never drinks will be quite impaired at 1‰ BAC, whereas someone who drinks several times a week might not be affected that much. Of course this variation is comparatively small. When it comes to THC, individual resistance really differs by orders of magnitude. Seems the body can adapt to psychoactive agents more easily than to cytotoxins such as alcohol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Do you struggle with the ethics of assisting in the arrest of, in my state, 90% minorities for a crime with dubious safety grounds?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a really important topic, and we were hoping someone would bring it up. Our device is designed to output objective results to shift the burden of proof from subjective observation to the output of a device. We would expect the number of false positives to decrease as a result of our device.

With that being said, we're also allocating a significant amount of our resources to have full-time employees, with lived experiences, research the implications of our technology on minority communities.

<comment><USER24> What a naive answer. A more perfect device is not preventing what OP is asking you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Are we even sure this is a problem? There seems to be no consensus on the impact of driving on THC [0].

THC has neurocognitive impacts, but those tend to be small and long lasting. It would be strange to tell users they can't drive for 30 days or longer.

[0][https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/26/driving- whil...](https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/26/driving-while-high- cannabis-study-safety)

<comment><USER3> The science is actually pretty concrete regarding the impairing effects of THC. Because cannabis is a schedule 1 drug, it can be very difficult for researchers to get their hands on real world doses of THC. Instead, they use very low doses that are not relevant to what is actually sold at dispensaries. For a really good review of all things cannabis impairment, I would recommend looking through the following report by the Cannabis Control Commission in Massachusetts. A little long, but a lot of good information. [https://mass- cannabis-control.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01...](https://mass-cannabis- control.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/FINAL-RR1-PS1-Cannabis-Impaired- Driving_2019-1-18.pdf)

<comment><USER26> I'm shocked that an organization called the Cannabis Control Commission published a report in favor of Cannabis Control!

<comment><USER3> I urge you to read the report. I think it relays a very balanced accounting of the facts. Its also a good place to find all the studies in one document, so I don't have to send you 100 links!

<comment><USER26> I spent several minutes looking and was not able to find those links within the 223 page report.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm sorry, but I'll have to state my discontent with your product. Firstly, I question it's usability from the beginning. How accurate is it? Can you get something similar to a BAC with it? Also how often/likely is it that a false positive will happen? More importantly I fear that the "Cannabis Breathalyzer" will become like a polygraph, which can't tell whether your actually lying or not, but is merely used as a tool by police that's used against people. Comparing Alcohol to Cannabis also isn't right. These are _vastly_ different chemicals with different effects on people. Over ~10000 people died in 2017 from alcohol impaired driving[0], can anything remotely similar be said of Cannabis? Don't get me wrong driving under the influence of any drug can be dangerous, and is why on most prescription bottles you'll have a "Do not operate heavy machinery" warning on it, but that doesn't stop everyone on medication from driving. Prohibiting Cannabis has caused much grief in the past that this tool, without accurate results and proper use, is likely going to cause more harm than good. If anything it will probably just help increase the incarceration rate to meet the status quo.

[0] [https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...](https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812630)

</comment><comment><USER28> Given there are countless substances that are hard/impossible to test for that could affect someone's ability to drive, the solution to this issue seems not to invent a new device for each substance but to come up with a more generalized test to measure someones level of impairment — reaction times are a good proxy.

<comment><USER29> Yeah, what happens when the next drug comes to legalization? A new device and a new dubious test with a 20 dollar per test charge? Maybe a cop should have a PlayStation and a driving wheel to test for impairment. Or a button that you have to press when you see something on the screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Interesting idea (congrats on launching) and interesting discussion here. Reading this thread has popped up some questions in my mind and I'm curious to hear thoughts:

Why do we (aka society aka the police) test for specific substance quantities at all? Really, I think, what we care about is whether someone is able to competently perform the task of driving at a given moment.

If you are unable to perform that task, then you should be removed from the road (and, possibly, punished).

Frankly, I don't really care whether you're drunk, high, tired, distracted from texting or even if you're just a plain 'ol bad driver. The net result is the same - you're an increased risk to others on (and off) the road and your risk should be mitigated.

This gets to the root of a number of related issues - the fact that different bodies react to different levels of chemicals in different ways, etc. etc.

If you're able to function at a given moment, fine by me. If your driving is compromised for whatever reason (as demonstrated by a field sobriety test), then off the road you go.

Thoughts / corrections / slap-downs?

<comment><USER31> You can test and arrest for objective things, not subjective ones.

"Who can or can't drive" is a subjective criteria. Objective criteria is someone under the influence of x or y substance.

<comment><USER32> What's subjective about a field driving test?

The reason is simply that it's impractical to do so. It's easier to run a quick BAC test, look at a number, and call it in than supervise a road test. So you can imagine there being false positives where the person fails the test but would otherwise drive safely.

Don't forget the true intent of these tests are to determine impaired driving. The criteria of "being under the influence of something" has historically been a useful analogue for that, but the question is if we can do better somehow by testing for impaired driving directly and not 2nd order metrics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It is documented that white & black Americans consume roughly cannabis at roughly the rate, yet black Americans are 3.73x more likely to be arrested for it (figure from the ACLU). How is this device not going to contribute to that disparity?

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the comment. Do you know if these numbers of for possession arrests or impaired driving arrests? I have been trying to look for the impaired driving arrest numbers but haven't had any luck yet.

One of the major roadblocks to legalization is fears surrounding public health risks, of which impaired driving is a component. We believe that by providing a device that makes policing cannabis impaired driving easier, we can help mitigate some of those fears. In that case, we hope the device would decrease possession arrests. As to whether or not our device would contribute to a disparity in impaired driving convictions between black and white American's, I am not 100% sure. Definitely something worth considering for us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> If we are after impairment why don't we measure reaction time and motor skills?

Alchol breathalyzers are orders of magnitude easier are broadly recognized as unscientific garbage.

It would be remarkable if your research led to anything but another tool to ruin peoples lives.

It will likely be weaponized to attack groups the police dislike like minorities.

In short I think the world would be a better place if you stayed in bed.

</comment><comment><USER34> I for one wish you the best of luck, and hope you develop an effective and accurate product. While I may have conflicting feelings about police municipalities and the justice system, the breathalyzer has overwhelmingly been a good thing, and has saved countless lives by keeping the roads safe.

Questions:

\- What do you think the likelihood/timeline is that these tests will eventually be comparable in speed and accuracy to alcohol breathalyzers?

\- Have you yet looked into the legal implications of a cannabis breathalyzer? Does it fall under the same rules and restrictions of a standard breathalyzer?

\- How rigorously are you testing for false positives? Can you tell someone who has taken drugs but they have worn off vs someone who is currently high?

\- Will you be making your data open source? Companies that sell proprietary technology to police departments can notoriously complicate legal cases when they do not disclose technical limitations or the possibilities of false positives or negatives.

\- Will you be restricting your product sales only to regions where marijuana is already legal? (If it's already illegal, they have other more accurate ways of establishing possession, I presume they shouldn't need this device except for nefarious purposes).

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! We appreciate the support, and I hope that this response will highlight the fact that we're engineers by trade, and are completely data-driven. We're not going to be selling anything, until there's the peer-reviewed research to back it up. Here's where we're at:

\- Speed isn't so much of a problem. Accuracy is by-far the most important piece of this puzzle. I think it will be between 12-18 months until we see real, robust, repeatable science to discuss the accuracy of testing in breath.

\- Legal implications of a cannabis breathalyzer are all based on two things: 1. use cases and 2. geographic location. Whether the device will be used for pre-arrest or post-arrest is something we're working on understanding better.

\- There is a lot of work still to do on determining our false-positive rate. We're actually going to be doing an IRB approved human trial later this year, and we'll report back to you with our findings and the full report!

\- Regarding open sourcing our tech- to be honest, we haven't really thought about this yet. Might be a good way improve transparency? We're definitely not opposed!

\- That's also a great question. Our tech is most useful in places where it's already legal. So that's where we'll start.

Hope this helps!

<comment><USER35> This could be used routinely in placed where any drug use is illegal more easily compared to a breathe test which could result in mass arrests.

<comment><USER34> IANAL: As I understand you can't use a breathalyzer test without a warrant.

Even when driving, you have the right to revoke it (other bad things happen, like taking your license away, but you can still refuse).

Taking a random standerby and breathalyzing him without consent or a warrant would be wrongful search and seizure.

<comment><USER3> Great point. In general it differs from country to country. In Australia, they have a random testing program that allows police to breathalyze without a warrant or probable cause. However, in the US roadside breathalyzer tests are voluntary and police require probable cause (visible evidence of swerving, smell alcohol on the breath, etc) to request a test.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I think this is really cool.

I always wondered though, the way we correlate numbers to driving ability seems sketchy. Some people take multiple large dabs of cannabis concentrate - and they're barely feeling it. This is because they basically do this all day every day.

Someone like that would fail this test, despite their motor skills remaining near baseline.

It's clearly different for alcohol, because it directly increases "network latency" (if you will) of motor control and sensory inputs.

So ultimately I would like a push to improve roadside driving ability testing, regardless of suspected substance use. This covers sleepiness, dehydration, etc.

<comment><USER37> > So ultimately I would like a push to improve roadside driving ability > testing, regardless of suspected substance use. This covers sleepiness, > dehydration, etc.

I definitely agree with you there. The difficulty is making it sufficiently objective.

A cop has every incentive to arrest you, so we need to have a degree of empiricism to the test so that cops can't use it to arrest anyone they want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Does this test for edibles? If a user has THC in their blood stream but not from their lungs, will this show up? Alcohol is absorbed through the stomach, passed through the bloodstream and released through the lungs. Since THC is fat soluble, I can't imagine it interacts the same way to allow for breathalyzer testing of people who have taken edibles.

<comment><USER39> Per OP:

> We are actually testing edibles right now! Early results don't look so good, > but that could be because we were using our crappy LC-MS for detection > instead of our sensor. We'll keep everyone updated with how it goes!

I don't understand how this gadget works, but if it's detecting residual THC in the lungs from smoke or vapor, I can't see how this improves over blood testing as a proxy for impairment; I can see how LEO would nonetheless like to have it as it further empowers roadside judgements.

<comment><USER40> I'm curious to see how you will test for this because the liver changes the chemical composition of THC and the body processes it differently than if you smoked. The THC that was eaten will show up chemically different than of it was smoked too. This looks very promising so far!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Way too many things will go wrong here, mainly that it will fall into the hands of the police.

How does this react to other forms of cannabis ingestion (edible, topical)?

Is there science behind cannabis impairing your ability to drive like alcohol or is this just a hypothesis that you are willing to make money off of?

Are you OK with your technology potentially targeting minorities and continuing the war on cannabis which was based almost entirely on racial motives in the first place?

What levels of cannabis are in your views "acceptable"?

</comment><comment><USER42> Do you mean "LED panel" in your Police-1 product page?

Can this detect THC that has been consumed by means other than smoking? Vaporizing? Edibles? Tincture?

</comment><comment><USER43> Please, for all of us, make sure your test set contains a wide diversity of people - doing this testing on recruits from a local college or among friends would make it very easy to bias your results for accuracy on particular populations. it's critical that your device be equally accurate on tall people, short people, white people, black people, men, women, thin, fat, and people with various illnesses or other disorders that may affect either THC metabolism or produce abnormal breath results (e.g., excess ketones in the breath for a diabetic). and don't just listen to some random person on the internet for this, find a pro.

<comment><USER3> Excellent point. This is something we have talked about internally a lot. Early on, we are really testing whichever people we can get but when we move into a full clinical trial we are definitely going to design the study to be as diverse as possible. That is why we reached out to Curebase, to make sure the professionals were involved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> It sounds nice in theory but at such minute levels, you're going to have tons of noise and variation from individual to individual. You'll be able to produce a result, but it likely won't have any bearing in reality.

In order to offset the noise you'll need to increase your sample size (volume) of air. You can't measure what isn't there, and once you get down to these levels stuff stops becoming distributed uniformly.

Have fun becoming friends with the vendors who supply the police their other technology. Must be a great crowd of people! You all can sit around and make jokes about black people and discuss your cut of civil forfeitures.

</comment><comment><USER28> Driving with an inadequate amount of sleep is almost certainly more dangerous and ubiquitous than having consumed a normal amount of cannabis (drowsy driving even causes more accidents than drunk driving). If we're going down this road, is there a similar effort to enforce and test for a minimum amount of sleep for drivers?

<comment><USER3> In general, that standard field sobriety test (walk in a straight line, stand on one foot, touch your nose, horizontal gaze nystagmus test) is used to gauge that kind of impairment. There are some companies that are working on automating the SFST, especially the horizontal gaze nystagmus test, but it is actually really difficult to build a device that is easy and portable but is also as accurate as a police officer.

</comment></comment><comment> VvR-Ox Thx for letting cops and other entities bust more people with your funny device.

Sorry I got absolutely no respect for this invention of yours as I know people personally who suffer from law enforcement's false positives. You'll only help them with it but I guess making money is more important today.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm sure this will work out for the parties who are frequently discriminated against. Safety is a concern but you sure better prepare yourself legally for what's coming.

</comment><comment><USER46> >we're imagining a world where there are one of our devices in every police car in North America.

Sounds like a terrible world honestly.

<comment><AUTHOR> 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.

<comment><USER47> Maybe, but also comparing driving under the influence of alcohol with driving under the influence of cannabis is definitely not congruent.

<comment><AUTHOR> 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/](https://feeldifferentdrivedifferent.org/)

<comment><USER47> -> 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....

<comment><USER48> 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.

<comment><USER49> >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.

<comment><USER47> 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....

<comment><USER48> I don't see how the argument is much different than for someone having some beers? If they have a few beers daily and blow over is this fair as it likely is not impairing them due to a higher tolerance? How is this different than if a regular weed user were to blow over, but also may have a higher tolerance?

The problem is that you can't really test for these tolerances, especially not in the field. That's why it's usually better to air on the side of caution and set a limit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> > Whereas a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08% (the legal limit in most > states) might result in a concentration of 208 ppm of ethanol in the breath, > a _similarly impairing_ dose of cannabis results in 0.00001 ppm of the drug > in breath. [emphasis added]

From personal experience, it seems to me that cannabis and alcohol have radically different effects. How can you define a "similarly impairing dose" when they are so unlike each other?

<comment><USER51> Perhaps by comparing accident statistics for similarities in the two groups and then comparing the doses of each that lead to those similar accident outcomes?

<comment><USER3> You can also compare performance on other standard impairment measurements techniques, such as the standard field sobriety test, or driving simulators. There are a lot of studies looking at the effect of cannabis on these tests, although a lot of them suffer from really low doses. It is hard for researchers to get their hands on real world doses of cannabis for their studies because the drug is still schedule 1.

<comment><USER52> > It is hard for researchers to get their hands on real world doses of > cannabis for their studies because the drug is still schedule 1.

I hear this trope a lot, but considering the number of states in the US that it's legalized in, can you clarify why?

<comment><USER3> For one, it makes it difficult for federally funded entities since the federal government views it as illegal. Also, lots of funding for state entities comes from federal sources. I have also heard of researchers having trouble with institutional review boards that still follow the federal guidelines.

<comment><USER52> Thx!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Awesome products and this makes so much sense given the rise of the cannabis market.

I am surprised by the amount of comments here that seem like they are more or less arguing against enforcement of DUI laws that will save lives.

<comment><USER54> I think a lot of folks here are aware of what a double-edged sword this could be. Getting impaired drivers off the road is a worthy goal, but these kinds of tools have had devastating consequences when misused by authority. Accuracy is also a major component here, and I believe all parties have acknowledged how challenging that problem is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Have you considered not selling technology to cops?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! There has been interest from safety-sensitive industries such as transportation, energy, manufacturing, construction, and oil & gas to use our device to help prevent life-threatening accidents in the workplace.

<comment><USER56> Let's modify the above somewhat: Have you considered not selling to cops in places where marijuana use is illegal? You have a nice traffic safety story for Canada, but aren't you afraid that in the US police will just "randomly" stop and test people (anywhere, not just drivers) they would like to incriminate?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Can you create a breathalyzer for biases next so we can police the cops?

Seriously, why do we need MORE police tech when current tech is already abused beyond belief?

Please rethink your values and reconsider the unintended consequences you might have by feeding into such a violent system. Or take responsibility for how you enable abuse of people using your tech.

</comment><comment><USER58> The Draeger breathalyzer fiasco in Washington State was mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Draeger has consistently resisted attempts to make its source code public. Will you commit to publicly releasing the source code to your "cannalyzer" device firmware?

<comment><USER3> Nice name for the device! To be honest, neither of the founders are electronics or software people, we are nanotech engineers. I don't actually know how useful the source code would be for determining if our device is working as intended. We would certainly release information regarding how our device performs QC checks and have the device validated by a third party.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Can I ask why you went this way - and what the benefits are of your specific approach? With a friend having done this in the past - having sold his technology, I've been more than a little interested in this.

Currently companies like Hound Labs have a breathalyzer test with high success rates (70% according to news reports). Israel (as a country) has two different spit tests that they've been using 'in production' (i.e the police) since 2018, both apparently in the 80% range, and as a bonus handles 5 different types of narcotics. Then there's the Drager DrugTest 5000, already deployed with law enforcement agencies at (apparently) a very high success rate.

<comment><USER3> Good question, especially regarding the DrugTest 5000

There are definitely some clear competitors in this space, but we feel that non of them have really been able to address the needs of the market.

Ill start with the Draeger because it is close to my heart. This is the device that has been approved in Canada for roadside screening. This was such a massive mistake. The government gave out tons of funding for police precincts to buy these so of course they did. However, they simply are not being used. I spoke with the drug recognition expert at the first ever police precinct in Canada to buy these devices. They bought two, and the day after the Captain of the precinct told him not to use them. He put them under his desk and they have been there ever since. The problem with the DrugTest 5000 is it is the size of a microwave, needs to be on a level surface, and has accuracy issues especially with cannabis. And really, police officers hate having to swabs someone's mouth for two minutes to get a sample.

With respect to other saliva tests, some are better than the Drager, some are worse, but they all have the same kind of problems. The police hate using them because swabbing peoples' mouths is gross, time consuming, and problematic in terms of chain of custody for evidence. Police use them because they are the best road side screening tests available today, but they would drop them in a heart beat for something less invasive.

In terms of Hound Labs, we are not 100% sure what to think. We understand they have been around for much longer, but they have not been deployed in any police precincts in the US. I know they did some early pilots in California, but nothing seems to have come of them. In general, our main advantage over Hound Labs is cost and durability. Electrochemical immunosensors are very cheap and really robust. The same can generally not be said for the fluorescent approach being used by Hound Labs. In the end, we will see who can provide the best product for the police, but we are fairly confident we have the edge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Well, I do see a lot of potential problems with law enforced using ghettos as an "arrest shop" and the like but that's not really on the technology or your company. In general it's seems like a good thing, nobody wants unresponsive people zipping around in +1 tonne metal boxes.

I'm curious about the "similarly impairing dose" though. Any good research, actual test results, etc?

I'm assuming it's response times which make me curious how the response time of a 25 year old post 3 hour cannabis smoker compares to a +70 year old on a regular day and how that compares to someone at the legal limit for alcohol.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the comment!

Impairment is the big question surrounding the enforcement of driving under the impairment of cannabis. It varies much more than alcohol based on BMI, age, and use history. Here are a few good resources for understanding cannabis impairment and how it compares to alcohol.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2722956/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2722956/) [https://mass-cannabis-control.com/wp- content/uploads/2019/01...](https://mass-cannabis-control.com/wp- content/uploads/2019/01/FINAL-RR1-PS1-Cannabis-Impaired-Driving_2019-1-18.pdf)

One of the most prolific researchers in this space is Marilyn Huestis. Anything by her is really good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> > a similarly impairing dose of cannabis results in 0.00001 ppm of the drug in > breath.

Would you mind citing a source? My understanding of why this has been a difficult problem thus far is that THC concentration is not inversely proportional to motor function (unlike alcohol). I.e. the drug effects people differently and simply measuring THC concentration alone is not enough to indicate intoxication or lack thereof.

<comment><USER3> This comment comes from the fact that peak THC impairment occurs 1 hour post consumption (see the NHTSA Marijuana-Impaired Driving, A Report to Congress) and our average measurement at that time for THC in breath is around 0.00001 ppm. With alcohol, the cut off for impairment is 0.08% BAC which correlates to around 200 ppm of alcohol. So concentration of THC at the time of peak impairment is 0.00001 ppm whereas the concentration of alcohol is 200 ppm at the time of peak impairment. We did not mean to say 0.00001 ppm THC = 200 ppm of alcohol. We just wanted to illustrate the magnitude different in detecting both molecules. I guess it was not well worded :(.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> >Whereas a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08% (the legal limit in most states) might result in a concentration of 208 ppm of ethanol in the breath, a similarly impairing dose of cannabis results in 0.00001 ppm of the drug in breath.

Hi, I'm just curious if you have any reference to help elaborate on the similarities of imparment as it relates to negative impact on a persons abilities (especially those known to have significant impact driving preformance)?

Is there any studied or understood similarity between the level of driving imparment when breath samples measure 208 ppm ethanol vs 0.00001 ppm cannabinoids (you may have mean just THC here but it's not clear to me)?

If there is a similar increase in the likelyhood of a fatal accident when breath measures 208 ppm ethanol vs 0.00001 ppm of the devil's lettuce I'll eat my shoe!

I don't mean to dismiss any potential impact of cannabis consumption on the likelyhood of fatal accidents or injuries but I do believe the impact is often greatly misrepresented when compared to alcohol consumption.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for your comment. Here are a few research papers you might find interesting:

Ramaekers JG, Van Wel JH, Spronk DB, et al. Cannabis and tolerance: Acute drug impairment as a function of cannabis use history. Sci Rep. 2016;6(May):1-9. doi:10.1038/srep26843 ([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4881034/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4881034/))

Veldstra JL, Bosker WM, De Waard D, Ramaekers JG, Brookhuis KA. Comparing treatment effects of oral THC on simulated and on-the-road driving performance: Testing the validity of driving simulator drug research. Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2015;232(16):2911-2919. doi:10.1007/s00213-015-3927-9 ([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25957748](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25957748))

Micallef J, Dupouey J, Jouve E, et al. Cannabis smoking impairs driving performance on simulator and real driving: A randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled, crossover trial. Fundam Clin Pharmacol. 2018;(June). doi:10.1111/fcp.12382 ([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29752828](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29752828))

You are totally correct that alcohol consumption results in far more fatalities and injuries than cannabis. A big part of this is how much more prevent alcohol is than cannabis. While around 70% of people report having used alcohol in the last year, only 20% report having used cannabis. However, this is changing as more and more people are using cannabis every year. I think we are going to see a long term trend were cannabis starts to close the gap with alcohol, at least where the drug is legal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> >A similarly impairing dose of cannabis results in 0.00001 ppm

Yeah this isn't going to work. The detection threshold is so low it's gonna go off if someone is smoking weed within 500 feet. There will be so many false positives it will practically be a divining rod.

Police already abuse sniffer dogs frequently, we shouldn't allow them to use another unreliable tool to arrest people.

<comment><USER64> Also

>We haven't had enough resources to run any formal trials yet to publish data, but that is changing this year.

So, ok. See you after the trials?

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> How does your device work for people who have taken edibles vs smoking?

I am not a chemist nor biologist, but ethanol escapes through mucus membranes and afaik, thc does not.

So, I am curious what mechanism has thc in the breath while people are "impaired" but not while they are heavy users that haven't had any thc for 24 hours.

<comment><USER3> Great question. The pathway by which THC gets into your breath has not been well studied that this point. That is one of the things we are actually trying to enable!

In general, it appears that it is a mix of deposition directly into the lungs and diffusion from the blood stream. Other non-volatiles, such as other drugs of abuse taken intravenously, have been detected in breath before. I would check out the research done by Olof Beck. He is fairly prolific in this space.

We are actually testing edibles right now, so we will know more in the coming months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> There is some serious negativity in these comments that I don't understand. I for one think that there is a strong need for a weed breathalyzer, and I encourage you in your efforts.

This is a fundamental and necessary part of the legalization of weed. Some people here are worried about the efficacy of such a device and the motives of partied involved - and rightly so. But consider for a moment: the cops don't need to use _any_ sort of test or device in order to arrest you if they suspect you of smoking today. They throw you in a jail cell and let the lab do your blood work in a couple months. And that process is very imprecise! You could have used cannabis weeks ago, then driven totally sober, but it would still show up in your blood tests.

</comment><comment><USER66> I had no idea this was such a polemic topic. Police have been doing roadside saliva-swab tests for cannabis, ecstasy and meth where I live for years now

[https://adf.org.au/insights/roadside-drug- testing/](https://adf.org.au/insights/roadside-drug-testing/)

Is it because it's a breathalyser?

My personal feeling is that lumping those three drugs in together (along with alcohol) is a blunt approach (which admittedly is often what the law favours) - I'd much rather be sharing the road with a bunch of stoners than meth heads or boozers, but the tendency here is towards zero tolerance for all impaired driving, regardless of the substance

<comment><USER33> It's a problem if it measures use instead of impairment especially where use is legal even more so if use is medical.

You'd find it pretty stupid if a breathalyzer sunk your life where you had a beer yesterday or 2 oz of beer 30 minutes ago.

<comment><USER67> Some of the Australian jurisdictions in which mobile drug testing has been implemented don't see this as a problem: as well as driving while impaired, there is a separate offence for having illicit drugs in your system which is designed for cases where the user may not actually be impaired [1] [2].

[1]: [https://www.legalaid.nsw.gov.au/publications/factsheets- and-...](https://www.legalaid.nsw.gov.au/publications/factsheets-and- resources/drugs,-driving-and-you-pamphlet)

[2]: [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-06/nsw-announces-drug- dr...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-06/nsw-announces-drug-drive-law- crackdown/11083452)

<comment><USER33> You don't see an issue with this? The people have an obvious vested interest in ensuring people aren't driving impaired. This is why we effectively are able to justify effectively searching your body for things that we have justifiable reason to believe may exist and might cause you to accidentally murder your fellow citizen with your car.

Absent the motive of impairment how do we justify such a search when we wouldn't allow such a thing in your house or on the sidewalk? Presumably Australia does because its notions of civil rights are about as interesting as Alabama's notion of reproductive freedom but do you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Sounds interesting. What differentiates your product from others on the market? For example [http://www.cannabixtechnologies.com/](http://www.cannabixtechnologies.com/)

<comment><USER3> Great question.

The two main competitors to our product is Hound Labs and Cannabix (the one you linked). Our main advantages over these two companies are cost and durability (which is kind of a proxy for portability). These advantages mostly stem from our choice of technology for our sensor. Electrochemical immunosensors are very cheap and also do not require any delicate components. Hound Labs is using an fluorescent approach while Cannabix is using something called FAIMS. FAIMS especially is an incredibly complex and expensive technology that isn't really suited to the roadside.

There is a world in which our product is used for screening out in the field and the Cannabix product is used back at the station for more accurate testing. Our companies do have some compatibility that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I bought an alcohol one via a crowdnfunding campaign that plugged into your iPhone via this mythical ancient technology called 'an audio jack' years ago called Breathometer. It was neat, it actually shipped and despite it chewing through batteries like crazy it was neat.

I imagine these sorts of chips/sensors have coome leaps and bounds in the past 6ish years. I know that researchers at some point had developed one to monitor blood sugar level for diabetics, this is a neat application too and with more and more states decriminalizing marijuana I bet you guys will have a lot of customers!

</comment><comment><USER69> Why some people seem to relation this with war on drugs? If weed was legal, I wouldnt want people driving high as a kite either, if anything this legitimizes the use of marijuana by regulating it just as alcohol.

</comment><comment><USER70> > The state of the art is a blood draw, followed by detection of THC at a > toxicology laboratory using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry.

> police are willing to pay $20 per test.

Is GC/MS (LC/MS?) really that cheap?

</comment><comment><USER71> Lots of talk about the consequences of false positives.

I understand the market for these devices is partly law enforcement. But another commercial market is devices installed in cars for habitual offenders. For alcohol detectors, something like half a million are installed in cars in America right now.

They have false positives, sure. Users learn to avoid substances that will trigger a false positive, because they want to drive their car. Its a massive inconvenience, but instead of a jail term, they are back at work etc driving their car.

</comment><comment><USER28> Given cannabis has a medicinal use for many how is fair to target it specifically and not also hold other medications that cause fatigue & drowsiness to the same standard?

<comment><USER3> Fair point. I think it is mostly a question of scale. Cannabis is the second most commonly used impairing substance after alcohol, and is becoming more prevalent every year. It would certainly be ideal to detect every impairing substance, but there are diminishing returns at some point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> 1) You mention THC. Do you test for CBD as well?

2) What if I walk around on the train or bus station, and I inhale some cannabis from someone who smokes? (This scenario is realistic for me.)

<comment><USER3> Good questions.

1\. Our device does not detect CBD. It is specific to delta-9-THC. Our understanding is that CBD is not psychoactive and the police not interested in it.

2\. As of yet, we have not seen any results from non-cannabis users on our device, some of whom were in the same room as our cannabis users when they used the drug. This will definitely be a focus of future tests for us, though. It would clearly be a huge problem if we returned positives from second hand smoke.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> Would this be able to track edibles?

<comment><USER3> We are actually testing edibles right now! Early results don't look so good, but that could be because we were using our crappy LC-MS for detection instead of our sensor. We'll keep everyone updated with how it goes!

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> > Even if the driver had smoked cannabis one minute before the traffic stop, > the driver's blood plasma THC level would have fallen 80%-90% in the first > hour after ingestion, and even more so after two and a half hours.

Can you source this claim from your front page? And if it is correct, how are you making sure the police correlate impairment with THC levels correctly?

If someone smoked 2-3 hours before driving, wouldn't even your device fail in this case? What thresholds are you using?

<comment><USER3> Here is the source of the 80%-90% statistic: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Marijuana-Impaired Driving: A Report to Congress. July 2017.

The approximate window for cannabis impairment is 2-3 hours. Our sensor is currently calibrated to align with that window. The current threshold is around 10 pg/mL, although more trials are required to make sure that is the correct number.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Would police be looking to use this as a pre-screen, and then take a blood test if your device reported impairment, or would they be directly using your test in court? Would it simply output the concentration, or would you provide added value via some sort of research/conversion chart that prosecutors can use in court to link the breath concentration to actual impairment, since most states don't have a statutory concentration set for marijuana?

<comment><USER3> That depends on how the research and regulation surrounding cannabis shake down.

Right now, our device would just be used as a screen to see if someone had used the drug recently. The device's results would not be taken to court and would likely be followed up with a blood or urine tests (not ideal, but that is what the courts accept these days).

Our device has the capacity to output a concentration, but more research into THC content in breath and impairment needs to be done to see if that concentration means anything. Likely, if a link between breath concentration and impairment is established, there will be a statutory concentration set for cannabis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> Is someone driving high dangerous?

<comment><USER19> Driving impaired in any way shape or form is dangerous.

[https://www.dailycamera.com/2016/06/09/affidavit-teen- driver...](https://www.dailycamera.com/2016/06/09/affidavit-teen-driver-in- fatal-crash-told-boulder-police-he-had-been-smoking-marijuana/)

<comment><USER77> As is driving unimpaired.

[https://www.stripes.com/us-army-soldier-three-others- serious...](https://www.stripes.com/us-army-soldier-three-others-seriously- injured-in-car-accident-in-germany-1.594535)

<comment><USER78> nobody should ever be allowed to drive ever then

<comment><USER79> Perhaps - automobile-related deaths outnumber gun-related deaths about 30:1.

<comment><USER80> And that's not to mention all the deaths from diseases associated with air pollution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> $20 per test!!!!!!!! That's not the police's "money", it's the tax payers. it's mine. no offense, but I feel like this is a ripoff. Seems innocent until you realize each cop could easily blow through (pun intended) $1,000 of my tax payer money in a quick evening and maybe if we are lucky catch 1 "bad guy". That's a lot of my tax dollars to make you rich, too much if you ask me.

</comment><comment><USER82> Aren't alcohol breathalyzers notoriously unreliable?

<comment><USER83> the field units are garbage. the big thing back at the station that's what will be used to provide data for the trial can be just fine if properly maintained.

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> I think this is great idea, congrats. What about testing in the workplace? It has always bothered me that someone could fail a drug test for weed at work even if they hadn't smoked in 2 weeks, but someone can show up slightly hungover and be 'fine'. I would find it acceptable if you had some accident and they could test that you were under the influence right then.

<comment><USER3> Great idea!

We have actually been talking to a lot of TPAs (the organizations that do drug testing for industry). We have some interest, but unfortunately a lot of employers still have a stigma against cannabis. They are happy failing people for using the drug on the weekend because they really don't want drug users working for them. Hopefully this gets challenged in court soon, but until then we will need to do some educating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> 1) As others have repeatedly asked: does it work if you eat a pot brownie, or is it based on smoking only?

2) What do "nanotech engineers" study in school that makes them qualified to manufacture something like this? Is that like a $2 word for a chemist?

Good luck with your launch.

</comment><comment><USER86> How confident are you that the results will indicate a level of impairment, rather than a particular concentration of THC?

Other substances contained in cannabis have significant synergistic effects with THC; are you going to look for other cannabinoids and the presence of terpenes?

<comment><USER3> Confident that it will indicate, not necessarily confident that it will correlate (if that makes sense). The impairment window is approximately 2-3 hours post consumption. We can calibrate our sensor to have a threshold of detection that only triggers a positive if you smoked 2-3 hours ago. However, it is not clear that a higher concentration on our device would indicate higher impairment. More research is required to determine that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> One question: with such varying cannabis tolerances, how one reason about impairment levels at a given concentration? I think it's well-intentioned, but expect this to primarily overestimate impairment of chronic users and underestimate that of naive users.

<comment><USER3> Good question.

Our current device only screens to see if you used cannabis in the last 2-4 hours (which aligns with the approximate window of impairment for cannabis). It does not actually assign a degree of impairment to a particular concentration (ie if our device returns a higher concentration, it does not necessarily more impaired).

This is actually good for chronic users. In all our tests, both frequent and infrequent users had no detectable trace of THC left in their breath 3 hours after consumption. Therefore, our test does not discriminate between frequent and infrequent users in the same way blood does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> Would this detect edibles?

</comment><comment><USER89> Personally, I feel the difference between alcohol and marijuana intoxication to be so different, it doesn't necessarily follow that the same rules should apply.

</comment><comment><USER90> Dumb question - does the way the cannabis was consumed affect the accuracy of the device? Does it work as well for edible cannabis as it does for a joint?

<comment><USER3> Great question actually.

The device works well for vaped and smoked cannabis. We generally see peak concentration 10 minutes after smoking, and a steady decay to 0 over the next few hours.

We are in the midst of testing for edibles. What we would expect is that the concentration is lower and that peak concentration should occur 1-2 hours post consumption, followed by decay. We will see how it goes!

</comment></comment><comment><USER91> How are you accounting for different consumption forms?

<comment><USER3> We have tested vaping and smoking. We are in the process of testing tablets and edibles. Definitely a very important part of the equation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> You wrote "Selling to the police is notoriously difficult" Why is this so? How do you overcome it? Who makes the purchasing decision?

<comment><USER3> Several reasons. To begin, police have very long sales cycles that are tied to their funding schedule. You need to make sure that you engage with them when their budget has been assigned but they haven't allocated to much of it. They also are very stringent in making sure they buy the correct product. For most large purchases, they do what is called a "request for tenure" in which companies bid on a contract with a given police department, so you have to almost always compete directly with alternatives to your product.

Purchasing decision are distributive differently depending on the size of the police precinct, but in general it is the Chief of Police.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> "It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom, we need to keep that in mind at all times" \- Bill Hicks

</comment><comment><USER94> Thanks but I would rather not work for Narcs Inc.

</comment><comment><USER95> Can you share a reference for this statement ?

"... a similarly impairing dose of cannabis results in 0.00001 ppm of the drug in breath."

</comment><comment><USER96> The problem with this entire concept is that every stoner I know is actually a safer and more risk-averse driver while stoned.

</comment><comment><USER97> Why go with a breath based test when a poc finger stick tests generally have higher validity and stricter correlation ranges?

</comment><comment><USER98> As it pertains to driving, how do unsafe driving laws and propable cause not already solve this issue?

</comment><comment><USER96> The problem with this entire concept is that every stoner I know is a safer driver while stoned.

</comment><comment><USER99> Is the detectable level different for inhaled vs consumed cannabis, like edibles?

</comment><comment><USER100> Shouldn't you need to prove that cannabis inhibits your driving first?

<comment><USER3> There is actually a lot of peer reviewed articles supporting the fact that cannabis impairs driving. Here are a few articles you might be interested in.

Ramaekers JG, Van Wel JH, Spronk DB, et al. Cannabis and tolerance: Acute drug impairment as a function of cannabis use history. Sci Rep. 2016;6(May):1-9. doi:10.1038/srep26843 ([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4881034/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4881034/))

Veldstra JL, Bosker WM, De Waard D, Ramaekers JG, Brookhuis KA. Comparing treatment effects of oral THC on simulated and on-the-road driving performance: Testing the validity of driving simulator drug research. Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2015;232(16):2911-2919. doi:10.1007/s00213-015-3927-9 ([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25957748](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25957748))

Micallef J, Dupouey J, Jouve E, et al. Cannabis smoking impairs driving performance on simulator and real driving: A randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled, crossover trial. Fundam Clin Pharmacol. 2018;(June). doi:10.1111/fcp.12382 ([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29752828](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29752828))

Thanks for the comment.

<comment><USER100> Why would pro level gran turismo driving simulator gamers use it as a performance enhancing drug if it "inhibits driving ability"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER101> Can't wait for this device. My daughter is breathing the contaminated air from HVAC in my condo complex from all the potheads that live in the building. Great job guys looking forward to buying this and have the property management screen suspects.

<comment><USER102> I'm sure this is just a troll post but wouldn't anyone your property management "caught" using this device simply say they used off the premises and that would be the end of it?

<comment><USER101> Not a troll just frustrated that potheads are contaminating the air in my state. I can't walk a mile with my kid without smelling pot in the air. The smell and the effect of irritating my eyes is worse than a cigs smoker standing next to me. To answer your question they could but their apartment will smell like a pot factory once the property management goes into check.

<comment><USER45> Contaminating the air... k.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER103> Well we can certainly see who smokes weed in here ... and probably who smokes weed and drives.

I'm all for marijuana legalization but sensible tests to prevent driving while high sound good to me.

You can't drive drunk, and marijuana can impair your driving abilities.

<comment><USER81> it also enhances your awareness though, resulting in more cautious driving. No studies have seen increased accidents in areas where marijuana has been legalized. Should we be testing for adderall curbside as well? What other prescription drugs would you like to restrict curbside? They all effect motor ability, after all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER104> How does this compete with Hound Labs (who was first to market)?

</comment><comment><USER105> This must be stopped.

</comment><comment><USER106> Have you filed for patent protection yet?

<comment><USER3> Yes we have. We have filed in Canada, the US, and PCT.

</comment></comment><comment><USER107> This is the first time I've ever hoped for the complete failure of a company featured in Launch HN.

This is an ill-conceived solution to exacerbate an existing injustice: uneven prosecution of laws in the War on Drugs.

Shame on you.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for you comment, and we certainly respect your opinion. Being conscious of the impact of our device on groups that have been historically target by police is something that is on our mind a lot.

I think it is important to recognize that the way drug impaired driving is tackled today is very subjective. Police administer an field sobriety test that involves walking in a straight line, standing on one foot, and touching their nose. They are then able to arrest the individual solely based on their opinion regarding impairment, which is susceptible to their personal biases. Our device can take out a lot of the guesswork and help eliminate biases from the equation.

Also, our device it not assisting police it arresting people for owning or even selling cannabis, just using it before driving. Not only that, but by detecting only recent use, it will reduce the instances of frequent users being improperly charged due to blood tests with large windows of detection.

<comment><USER14> Have you guys actually established a relationship between presence of THC and actual driving impairment? I doubt it. Seems to me that you guys are just out to make a quick buck and the way you are framing the rhetoric is just a nice story.

At what levels of THC concentrations is driving empirically impaired and is this measurement consistent across everyone? What evidence do you have to support that THC impairs driving?

<comment><USER108> > At what levels of THC concentrations is driving empirically impaired and is > this measurement consistent across everyone? What evidence do you have to > support that THC impairs driving?

The Government of Canada has already legislated [0] that THC impairs driving and that the per-se limit is 2ng of THC per ml of blood. I'm certain this YC company had nothing to do with lobbying for that legislation and that it would have been passed with or without them.

Surely if there is someone to blame for setting nonsensical limits, you should blame the government and the hysterical voters who elect them.

[0] [https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/sidl- rlcfa/qa2-qr2.html](https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/sidl- rlcfa/qa2-qr2.html)

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure why you mention Canadian legislation when this product is for America. Secondly, Canadian government setting these constraints doesn't mean that THC impairs driving. What is their evidence? Laws aren't always supported by science and data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER109> This went as well as it deserved to.

</comment><comment><USER110> Sounds like an enabler for a new tax

</comment><comment><USER111> I'm skeptical that ppm of THC correlates to "Highness" as well as ppm of alcohol correlates to drunkeness.

</comment><comment><USER112> I smell cops

</comment><comment><USER113> Is the pro-thc crowd really so focused that they would prefer impared drivers be untestable?

<comment><USER114> You're missing the point that the war on drugs is racist, oppressive, expensive and counterproductive. Adding technology does not improve any aspect of that.

FWIW I do not think driving high is safe at all, but I don't think it's a serious problem either (by the numbers).

<comment><USER17> Except your defensive "war on drugs" reaction is not really applicable here, as this product is being developed in the context of an environment where cannabis consumption is 100% legal (Canada).

<comment><USER47> Actually it's still applicable regardless of legality... that doesn't change police profiling and would still adversely affect minority groups. So instead of more people of color getting arrested for marijuana possession they get arrested for marijuana dui

<comment><USER17> Racial profiling is still applicable/relevant in another form, yes. But that's a different thing from 'war on drugs' per se.

Legalization has taken away the police's ability to target for consumption, and removed their ability to ruin people's lives for it. That's huge. And the gov't will now be providing a way for people to strike old possession crimes from their record, apparently.

<comment><USER47> Legalization does take that ability away, and to some extent this sort of enables it. The simple solution is don't drive under the influence and you will have no issues, but the arbitrary nature of these tests and what happens in real life leave me feeling less than confident this would play out fairly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER115> Is the sensor gnp based?

<comment><USER3> It is not, but it does involve a gold substrate. We haven't found it necessary to include gold nanoparticles in order to achieve the required lower limit of detection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER116> The war on drugs has ruined literally millions of lives:

[https://wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs#Arrests_and_incarcer...](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs#Arrests_and_incarceration)

with all due respect, I hope you fail miserably.

<comment><USER117> This is not about the war on drugs, this is about making roads safer. Driving under the influence is illegal whether the influencing drug is legal or not.

<comment><USER118> Driving under the influence should be detected by professional law enforcement observation. This can be easily backed up with video footage. Then if suspected after being pulled over, tested clinically. This is not that difficult. Even if a certain level of any substance is detected and measured, level of impairment is not.

<comment><USER6> > Driving under the influence should be detected by professional law > enforcement observation.

It is. I've been pulled over a few times in my life. Never had a breathalyzer test done, because they assumed (correctly) that I hadn't been drinking. But human observation is far from perfect. And even harder to defend in court.

> Then if suspected after being pulled over, tested clinically. This is not > that difficult.

What does "tested clinically" mean. If you mean a breathalyzer for cannabis, well then that's what this is. If you mean a blood test, well, it's pretty hard to get someone to a lab in time to detect meaningful levels of THC from recent smoking, as the poster of the Launch HN notes. It _is_ pretty difficult.

> Even if a certain level of any substance is detected and measured, level of > impairment is not.

This is tricky. As with alcohol, different people have different tolerances. Some people can have one drink and feel tipsy, others don't feel it at all. So we set a legal limit for how much alcohol you can have in your blood, regardless of how you feel. You have to draw the line somewhere and we've decided as a society to set it at a point that's more conservative in order to reduce accidents related to drunk driving. And there are plenty of drunk driving accidents. This would do the same thing with pot. Yes, you might feel perfectly fine, but I don't want your subjective opinion of how well you think you can drive under the influence of marijuana to be the determining factor in whether we let you drive after smoking pot or not. If you want to smoke, stay put or take an uber.

<comment><USER119> >Yes, you might feel perfectly fine, but I don't want your subjective opinion of how well you think you can drive under the influence of marijuana to be the determining factor in whether we let you drive after smoking pot or not.

Couldn't you approach the same problem by testing the capabilities of the driver rather than testing the amount of a substance in their system (after all there are countless substances than can impair a driver, not just alcohol and marijuana)? Would an improved field sobriety test be a more appropriate product than an improved breathalyzer?

<comment><USER6> > Would an improved field sobriety test be a more appropriate product than an > improved breathalyzer?

Yes, do you have such a test?

<comment><USER119> No, but I'm also not the one selling breathalyzers either. I was merely offering a hypothetical product that people could work on that would both meet the need this company identified and satisfy most of the complaints from the community here.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure what this hypothetical product would measure. Driving ability? If so, what if it was found that that would discriminate against classes of people? How do you gauge driving ability anyway? I would probably win a formula one race against my wife, but she's much better at paying attention to the road on long, boring stretches of highway. But I can't imagine that it's easy to test for that.

Meanwhile, this product tests for something that's easy and simple. Have you recently used marijuana? It gives a yes or no (and presumably a level of some sort). It's not the _perfect_ test, but it seems like a fallacy to argue against this test on the basis of a better test that doesn't currently exist.

<comment><USER119> You don't have measure actual driving ability. Current field sobriety tests don't do that. You can instead test coordination, balance, cognition, reaction time, etc. These are the things we actually care about when we talk about impaired driving. So why don't we test them instead of testing for one or two specific substances?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER120> Just the fact that you will be profiting off of this perceived issue, means you have some interest in the root causes of impaired driving remaining unsolved. Reading statements like this just tells me you have dollar signs in your eyes:

> we're imagining a world where there are one of our devices in every police > car in North America

Nowhere did I see a sentiment akin to this:

> we're imagining a world where people act more responsibly, driving deaths > are reduced, etc

I think it would go a long way towards establishing more credibility and goodwill on your part if you pledged a not-insignificant % of revenue (not just profit) towards education, mental health and/or civil rights efforts. At the end of the day, it is all citizens' tax dollars that will be used to pay you, so you should do the right thing and make those dollars work for them.

You should show that you're actually using this as a step towards eradicating the root cause, not just profiting off of the perceived problem. Probably the best way for something like this to show it has helped society is if it ultimately obviates its own raison d'être, because the problem has been solved and thus the need for your palliative has vanished.

It's like a doctor prescribing opiates vs solving the underlying issue of a patient's pain, or psychiatric patients hooked on antidepressants. I'm sure there were plenty of execs dreaming of every pharmacy stocked with Oxy. These things may be helpful, but only as a step towards solving the underlying issue. When they become the end goal, people get hurt.

<comment><USER37> I think comments like this are incredibly harmful. There is a strong need for this device, and this person is working to fill the need.

To also hoist the responsibility of fixing society's fundamental issues _and_ ask him/her to give up the revenue (not just profit) that they earns is absurd. I would say that this person is doing more than their fair share.

<comment><USER120> > There is a strong need for this device

Show me. "Many people are saying" is not evidence, it's argumentum ad populum.

> doing more than their fair share

Your opinion, while noted, is disagreeable to me.

<comment><USER37> What needs to be shown? It is well known that cannabis use while driving is both very common and very dangerous[1]. Or are you trying to argue that breathalyzers are not needed to combat this problem? I would argue that the absence of these devices has caused a great deal of damage to the innocent while making it difficult to detect and punish the guilty[2].

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3836260/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3836260/) [2] [https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5914a293e4b030d4f1f0f5ed](https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5914a293e4b030d4f1f0f5ed)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER121> _First you sell them the weed

_ Then you sell them the breathalyzer

*I am waiting for the next YC startup batch with the rehab app.

</comment><comment><USER122> This is not going to work. Just walking through a cloud someone exhales at you would make you test positive. Being at a party would make you test positive.

Honest question, why can't companies seem to come up with ideas that don't involve violating the rights of people?

</comment><comment><USER123> Lord save us from technologists with brains larger than their hearts.

</comment><comment><USER124> que gorras</comment>