Breath
Fresheners and Breathalyzers
Information
courtesy of Lawrence Taylor - DUIblog
So
you're driving along and suddenly there are flashing red lights
in your rear view mirror. You recall that glass of wine with dinner:
not nearly enough to be over .08%, of course, but enough to cause
an odor of alcohol on the breath. As you pull over, you grab the
breath freshener and quickly spray it into your mouth.
The
officer asks you to step out of the car, holds out a portable breath
testing device and asks you to blow into it. A moment later you
are being handcuffed.
What
happened?
One
of the many problems with breath machines is that they cannot tell
the difference between alcohol coming from the lungs and alcohol
which is already in the mouth or throat. This problem is referred
to as "mouth alcohol", and is particularly troublesome
because, believing it to be alcohol from the lungs, the breath machines
will incorrectly multiply the detected alcohol by 2100 times (see
my earlier post, Breathalyzers -- and Why They Don't Work).
One
common source of breath alcohol is breath spray, as well as mouthwash
-- both of which contain significant amounts of alcohol. Listerine,
for example, contains 27% alcohol, Scope 19% and Astring-O-Sol 76%.
Even a tiny amount of this on the breath or in the throat, if multiplied
by the machine 2100 times, can result in high breathalyzer readings.
This
was clearly illustrated in a study conducted with Listerine mouthwash
on a breath machine and reported in an article entitled "Field
Sobriety Testing: Intoxilyzers and Listerine Antiseptic", published
in the July 1985 issue of The Police Chief (page 70). Seven individuals
were tested at a police station, with readings of .00%. Each then
rinsed his mouth with 20 milliliters of Listerine mouthwash for
30 seconds in accordance with directions on the label. All seven
were then tested on the machine at intervals of one, three, five
and ten minutes.
The
results indicated an average reading of .43% blood-alcohol concentration
-- indicating a level that,
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