Marijuana breathalyzers may finally hit the streets in 2020, after years of research, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
Created by Hound Labs in Northern California, investors are banking on a “massive market” for the breath test, known as the Hound. The project was done in collaboration with the University of California at San Francisco and Berkeley, and funded by Intrinsic Capital Partners, a Philadelphia growth equity fund, The test will retail for approximately $5,000 per unit.
According to Dr. Mike Lynn, CEO of Hound Labs, the Hound—which doubles as an alcohol breathalyzer—will be able to detect marijuana in the system if it has been smoked or ingested within the last three hours, known as “the peak impairment window.”
“The fundamental challenge is that THC exists in breath in concentrations that are something like a billion times less than alcohol,” Lynn, a veteran emergency department physician and reserve deputy sheriff, told Digital Trends. “That means you need a breathalyzer that’s literally a billion times more sensitive if you’re going to use it for marijuana. It’s like identifying 25 or 30 specific grains of sand on a beach that’s well over a mile long. That’s a pretty tough scientific [problem to solve].”
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have also developed a prototype for a marijuana breathalyzer, but it must undergo further testing before it’s ready for manufacturing and use by law enforcement, the Philly Voice reports.
Which Communities Will ‘The Hound’ Target?
Marijuana has been legalized for recreational use in 11 states plus the District of Columbia; 33 states plus D.C. have approved medical marijuana.
Still, as ESSENCE previously reported, Black people are nearly four times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than their white counterparts—particularly in occupied Black and Brown communities that are blatantly targeted for broken-windows policing and surveillance—despite being no more likely to smoke or ingest it.
When anti-blackness is institutionalized, a tool allegedly conceptualized to create safe environments can lead to more harm for vulnerable and targeted communities. With police officers already disproportionately targeting these communities, it stands to reason that marijuana breathalyzers would cause a spike in racially discriminatory arrests.
Even though history already shows us this, with the marijuana breathalyzer scheduled to hit the streets in 2020, time will tell.