Picture this: enveloped in a warm blanket of marijuana on life’s carousel. Now, change scenes to the Marijuana Impairment Test. Forget about it not making any sense.
There is no such thing with marijuana as easy as those alcohol tests with the sparkling clarity of a Breathalyzer. THC, the mind-altering chemical in cannabis lingers Like and odor in an elevator long after someone has ridden and departed. The mental haze dissipates more quickly but residue remains and it makes hitting the mark hard.
Consider the cast of characters with us. So, a first-time user might get high and fumbling over words but with squeaky clean chemical smell test; a seasoned user might blow through the DUI checkpoint in a residential area never even twitching while the test is raising all red flags. Hence, it is very much like playing darts in the dark and hoping to hit bullseye.
The tech geniuses have realized that they need to tackle this. So, like a fancy robot smelling spoiled milk over yonder, those brilliant people are working on cool tools that can smell impairment. They are still debugging and crunching data to work out their algorithms.
The problem gains urgency with more states greenlighting pot use. But safety paramount among all ranks—especially on the roads. An inaccurate test just means that they don’t want any driver among us seeing their drive to work get featured in a looped clip on the evening news if it ends out being untrue.