Investors, state governments, employers — everyone wants a functional marijuana breathalyzer to test whether someone is high at a given moment. But that may not be possible.
Amanda Lewis / Via BuzzFeed News
Right now it's impossible to accurately enforce stoned driving laws, because there is no roadside test that can determine whether a driver is actually high.
Which is why many of the people checking out the Cannabix Technologies booth at the Marijuana Investor Summit in Denver last month were thrilled. Here, finally, in a hotel ballroom littered with men in suits hawking useless apps and grow-house accessories, was a product with real potential: a marijuana breathalyzer.
As medical and recreational marijuana become legal in more and more places, the need for an easy way to determine whether someone is acutely stoned, meaning high at the moment of testing, has become all the more imperative. For example, although stoned driving numbers are not tracked nationally, Washington has reported a significant increase in drivers testing positive for THC since the state legalized marijuana in 2013. Cops need to know if drivers are too stoned to be on the road. People of color who get disproportionately pulled over for routine traffic stops need to know they won't just be arrested for a joint smoked the day before. Employers want to know if their workers are toking up on breaks.
Stoned driving was one of three top policy priorities identified by California's Blue Ribbon Commission on Marijuana Policy, a two-year study of the most pressing pot-related issues chaired by the state's lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom. "This is a challenge that needs to be addressed—yesterday," Newsom told BuzzFeed News. "No one wants to share the road with an impaired driver, but it's happening every day and yet no tangible effort has been made to raise our understanding of measuring marijuana impairment to the same level as we have with alcohol impairment."
The quest for a pot breathalyzer is one almost everyone can get behind. The only problem is that no one has figured out how to make one that works. That's where companies like Cannabix come in.
Not everyone who came to Cannabix's booth believes a marijuana breathalyzer is even possible. Cannabix CEO Rav Mlait said he knew as soon as he saw the smirking man in red-framed glasses bounding toward him that self-described "cannabis expert and educator" Max Montrose would not be a potential investor.
"So tell me about this," Montrose commanded in a nasal baritone, gesturing to the table full of leaflets and the monitor playing a promotional video on repeat.
"Sure, sure, sure," Mlait said. A plodding, middle-aged Canadian in dark jeans and a light blue button-up, he began explaining that a few days earlier his company had released images of their alpha prototype, a pistol-like device with a plastic breathing tube where the barrel would be.
Cannabix Technologies
"I dig that. So let's move a little faster in this conversation," Montrose said. "So what about the fact that the science for cannabis DUIs is like, the most untrue, fucked-up shit you've ever seen?"
Mlait stammered the beginning of a response but then trailed off, unsure of how to handle this politely. Montrose was more than happy to keep talking. "Your product could send sober people to jail," he said.
Here's what Montrose was talking about: Unlike alcohol, which is water soluble and surges in the bloodstream as you get drunker and then disappears as you sober up, THC, the ingredient in marijuana that gets you high, is fat soluble and therefore can remain in the body for several weeks. In 16 states, anyone who smokes pot over the weekend could be drug tested on the way to work on Monday and automatically be found guilty of driving under the influence, without a trial. In the other 34, those arrested for drugged driving will at least get a chance to tell their story to a jury, but a positive result on a biological test is a difficult piece of evidence to argue against.
This is exactly the problem that Mlait and his business partner, Kal Malhi, say they are trying to solve. The breathalyzer their team is working on would, in theory, be able to determine whether someone has smoked, vaped, or digested THC in the past two hours.
Mlait and Malhi, a mustachioed former Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer, assume people like Montrose just want to be allowed to drive while high, so they try not to engage when critics inevitably approach. Besides, their product sells itself. Or at least, the idea behind their product sells itself.
For now, in most of the country, suspected stoned drivers must be brought in for blood tests. If the person being pulled over has just smoked pot for the first time in months, the marijuana metabolites in their system could be below the legal limit by the time they get to a lab a few hours later. If the person being pulled over gets high several times a week, the metabolites in their system will likely be above the legal limit, regardless of whether they were driving under the influence.
Some states have begun using cheek swabs and spit tests for quick roadside screening, because saliva doesn't retain THC as long as blood does. But even infrequent smokers can test positive a full day after the munchies and euphoria have subsided. Medical marijuana patients and stoners who light up daily have almost no chance of passing a saliva test, though not all test brands are reliably accurate.
When it comes to breath tests, Cannabix isn't the only option out there. Early last fall, the state of Colorado gave a drug and alcohol testing company called Lifeloc Technologies a $250,000 grant to develop a weed breathalyzer. Within two months, researchers at Washington State University announced they were also working on one.
Even though almost no one has ever seen the Cannabix breathalyzer in action, Malhi and Malit's regular stream of upbeat press releases imply they are the ones closest to a final product, so everyone wants in: law enforcement, employers, government agencies, parole officers, and, of course, investors. Malhi and Mlait started Cannabix Technologies last summer. Since then, their stock has gone from 5 cents to as high as 62 cents, and is currently trading around 28 cents a share.
Despite their clash with Montrose, Malhi and Mlait were in high demand at the Marijuana Investor Summit. A few hours before being confronted by Montrose, they ate breakfast with the head of HR from a major oil and gas company in Texas. And just before the two headed off to lunch with representatives from the Colorado Department of Transportation, an enthusiastic investor, Alaskan fisher Peter DeJongh, stopped by.
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1Bv1Lpo
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