If driving high is part of your normal routine, it might be wise to be more cautious now that more states are legalizing marijuana and law enforcement is stepping up efforts to curb stoned driving.
States such as Colorado are now ramping up efforts to nab drugged drivers with their recent statewide marijuana testing program, which allows them to use weed breathalyzers to detect cannabis in the driver’s system. The program also calls for using five different breathalyzers since the state is still testing each method but with various results. The results could potentially be inaccurate or take time and could arrest individuals who are not high but a new method to test for cannabis in a person’s system has been developed that will test for THC in 3 minutes.
The system was created by Professor Shan Xiang Wang at Stanford University and is a saliva-based test that uses a magneto-nanosensor able to detect traces of marijuana in saliva as rapidly as three minutes. The sensors require connections via Bluetooth to a smartphone where officers can analyze instantly eliminating the need to test at a lab.
“Detection of marijuana from blood or urine in a reference lab is not difficult, but it is difficult or impractical at the roadside,” Professor Wang told Digital Trends. “Most law enforcement officers are not authorized to take blood samples, while taking a urine sample on spot is extremely inconvenient. Detection of marijuana from saliva would bypass the trappings with either blood or urine samples.”
While most of us will come to the conclusion that we can drive while high it’s probably best to now take more precaution in your legal state because its almost 100% sure that each legal state will enact driving while high laws but will their methods of testing generate 100% accurate results?
