New breathalyser detects marijuana, meth and cocaine

Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden have developed a new kind of breathalyser at the detects a lot more than just alcohol on your breath. When Police suspect a driver under the influence, it's a simple matter to administer an on-the-spot breath test that can immediately reveal how much alcohol is in bloodstream. But what if the influence in question is not alcohol?

Rather than subjecting everyone involved in transportation to a facility that can administer an invasive blood test or a messy urine test, researchers at the Karolinska Institute have created a breathalyser that can be used on the spot Called SensAbues, the breathalyser has succesfully detected amphetamine, metamphetamine, cannabis, cocaine, MDMA, buprenorphine, methadone, heroin, benzodiazepines and nicotine.

The team, lead by Olof Beck at the Karolinska Institute's Department of Medicine, collected blood and urine samples from 47 patients who had recently used drugs as a comparison point. The test subjects then breathed into the SensAbues. Tiny particles were trapped in a proprietary filter, in 40 cases of the 47, the substances were positively identified.

Alas, it's not as simple as an on-the-spot reading, however. Once used, the SensAbues breathalyser needs to be package up and sent to a laboratory for liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis. This, of course, leaves a problem in its wake what are the police to do with a driver suspected of being under the influence?

There are other applications, for the technoogy, though, drug testing for construction workers or operators of heavy machinery, for example. And, although the laboratory for analysing the filters is in Sweden, the product is already available on the market. It's only matter of the time before SensAbues starts appearing in other countries. You can read the research paper, titled "Detection of drugs of abuse in exhaled breath using a device for rapid collection : comparison with plasma, urine and self-reporting in 47 drug users", on IOP science.

 

http://www.goocap.com/2013/04/new-breathalyser-detects-marijuana-meth.html