HISTORY
The breathalyzer (AKA breathalizer) is a device used by the authorities for measuring the blood alcohol content (BAC) of a person. This device was originally designed by Smith & Wesson and were once large machines that cost thousands of dollars per unit. Police departments were the only ones with these devices and they were base units at the station which required them to bring subjects back to the station to be tested.
Today hundreds of manufacturers make small, portable breathalyzer units that much more accurate and cost as little as $20 each. This enables law enforcement officers to give breathalyzer tests out in the field and the average person can easily purchase one of these units for their own person use.
THE LAW
In most states you are considered intoxicated if you drive while your BAC level is over 0.08%, however some states have the limit as high as 0.1%.
Look at the chart below, it only takes 3 drinks (units of alcohol) to make the average person too intoxicated to drive.
For the average person it takes an hour to process one drink, so if you have 3 drinks putting you over the limit it will take approximately one hour to put you back into the 2 drink range and up to 3 hours to bring your BAC back down to 0.00%.
Alcohol effects different people in different ways. A person who drinks everyday may be able to function perfectly fine with a BAC of 0.1%, while another person of the exact same age, weight, size, and stomach composition who rarely drinks might be falling all over the place with a BAC of 0.1%. Your BAC level has absolutely nothing to do with your tolerance of alcohol. The BAC level was set to account for the average person, not the person with an insanely high tolerance who drinks a case a night and two on the weekends. So many people are totally shocked to realize how high their BAC is after just a few drinks.
BEATING THE BREATHALYZER
Many people believe that they can beat the breathalyzer test by sucking on breath mints, onions, a penny, or using mouthwash. However, these are all myths.
An episode of the Discovery Channel’s MythBusters tested substances usually recommended in this practice—including breath mints, mouthwash, and onion—and found them to be ineffective. Adding an odor to mask the smell of alcohol might fool a person, but does not change the actual alcohol concentration in the body or on the breath which is what is measured by the breathalyzer.
You must blow hard to get an accurate reading from a breathalyzer and this test actually measures the alcohol from air exhaled from deep within the lungs and not just from your mouth. When you drink alcohol the mouth, throat, stomach, and intestines absorb alcohol into the bloodstream. When yout blood passes through the lungs’ air sacs, the alcohol moves across them as well, thus the concentration of alcohol in the breath is directly proportional to the concentration of it in the blood. The breath alcohol to blood alcohol ratio is 2,100:1. This means that every 1 ml of blood has the same amount of alcohol in it as 2,100 ml of exhaled breath.
Interestingly, substances that might actually reduce the BAC reading were not tested on the show. These include a bag of activated charcoal concealed in the mouth (to absorb alcohol vapor), an oxidizing gas (such as N2O, Cl2, O3, etc.) which would fool a fuel cell type detector, or an organic interferent to fool an infra-red absorption detector. The infra-red absorption detector is especially vulnerable to countermeasures, since it only makes measurements at particular discrete wavelengths rather than producing a continuous absorption spectrum as a laboratory instrument would do.
We used the Alcohawk Pro Digital Breathalyzer which has a ±0.002% accuracy to do our own tests and measure the BAC of a person before and after putting a teabag filled with activated charcoal tablets in their mouth:
John had a BAC of 0.12% BAC and the bag of activated charcoal effectively lowered his BAC to 0.08%.
Natalie had a BAC of 0.14% BAC and the bag of activated charcoal effectively lowered her BAC to 0.09%.We found that this method only slightly lowers the BAC of the person taking the test and requires that a person essentially breathe through a teabag containing charcoal tablets. If the police officer giving the test uses the proper procedures then he will check the inside of the persons mouth to make sure they are not concealing anything in their mouth which may effect the test results.
On the other hand, products such as mouthwash or breath spray can “fool” breath machines by significantly raising test results. Listerine, for example, contains 27% alcohol; because the breath machine will assume the alcohol is coming from alcohol in the blood diffusing into the lung rather than directly from the mouth, it will apply a “partition ratio” of 2100:1 in computing blood alcohol concentration—resulting in a false high test reading. To counter this, officers are not supposed to administer a PBT for 15 minutes after the subject eats, vomits, or puts anything in their mouth.
Vary Your Breathing Pattern
The tests we ran found that varying our breathing patterns had a small effect on the readings:
Holding your breath for 30 seconds before exhaling increased the blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) from 0.12% BAC to 0.15% BAC.
Hyperventilating for 20 seconds immediately before, on the other hand, decreased the blood-alcohol level by from 0.12% BAC to 0.10% BAC.
Keeping the mouth closed for five minutes and using shallow nasal breathing resulted in increasing the BAC from 0.12% to 0.15%, and testing after a slow, 20-second exhalation increased levels by 0.02%.
We found two sources online, “How Breathing Techniques Can Influence the Results of Breath-Alcohol Analyses”, 22(4) Medical Science and the Law 275 and “Accurate Measurement of Blood Alcohol Concentration with Isothermal Breathing”, 51(1) Journal of Studies on Alcohol had similar findings to our own.
Dr. Michael Hlastala, Professor of Physiology, Biophysics and Medicine at the University of Washington has gone farther and concluded:
“By far, the most overlooked error in breath testing for alcohol is the pattern of breathing….The concentration of alcohol changes considerably during the breath…The first part of the breath, after discarding the dead space, has an alcohol concentration much lower than the equivalent BAC. Whereas, the last part of the breath has an alcohol concentration that is much higher than the equivalent BAC. The last part of the breath can be over 50% above the alcohol level….Thus, a breath tester reading of 0.14% taken from the last part of the breath.
Many police officers know this. They also know that if the machine contradicts their judgement that the person they arrested is intoxicated, they won’t look good. So when they tell the arrestee to blow into the machine’s mouthpiece, they’ll yell at him, “Keep breathing! Breathe harder! Harder!” As Professor Hlastala has found, this ensures that the breath captured by the machine will be from the bottom of the lungs, near the alveolar sacs, which will be richest in alcohol. With the higher alcohol concentration, the machine will give a higher — but inaccurate — reading.
Pulling the Trigger
We found that a person with a BAC level of 0.12% BAC could significantly lower their BAC level if they stop drinking. Drink water and then induce vomitting. After clearing their stomach they then ate food to further absorb any remaining alcohol in their body and took a brisk 10 minute walk as their body began metabolizing the food. We measured their BAC again after this process (20 minutes after the first reading) and found that their BAC was only 0.07%. This lowered the level significantly faster than just time alone which would take approximately 1.5 hours to reach this level according to the graph above.
RECOMMENDED BREATHALYZER UNITS TO BUY
AlcoHawk Pro is FDA/DOT/NHSTA approved Professional Grade breathalyzer. The AlcoHawk Pro takes a deeper breath sample from the user and provides more accurate results than similar models, FlowCheck Technology ensures enough air is blown into the machine.
The Professional Grade Alcohol Breathalyzer The Alcohawk Pro is a extremely accurate semiconductor-oxide breathalyzer. This professional model takes a deeper breath sample from the user and provides more accurate results than similar models. A deeper breath sample will draw the air out of the bottom of the lungs, and into the AlcoHawk Pro to determine the users BAC. By ensuring that the user is getting that deep lung air, you will be assured that the AlcoHawk will provide you with the most accurate results available. This Professional Grade Breathalyzer is Perfect for many professional organizations for employee screening, emergency room care, hospitals, schools, law enforcement, and roadside testing.
The semiconductor sensor accuracy is ±0.002% BAC at 0.10% BAC and is DOT / NHTSA cleared. The Alcohawk Pro is also 510(k) Certified by the U.S. FDA.
LG Korea has even introduced a breathalyzer phone, the LG LP4100 which has a built-in breathalyzer capabilities that records your blood-alcohol level. When blown into by an intoxicated person, it will gives a warning and displays a nifty little animation of a car swerving on a road and crashing into traffic cones.
CONCLUSION
There is no effective way to significantly lower your BAC level. You can use activated charcoal tablets to slightly lower the level by 0.04-0.05%, however if you are completely intoxicated then this will not be a significant drop. Also, law enforcement will most definitely be aware of the fact that you have something in your mouth that could effect their test results.
I do not recommend drinking and driving as it kills thousands of people each year. Get a designated driver, stay over night, call someone, get public transportation and pick up your car the next morning.
Matthew Spencer recently killed his entire family while driving intoxicated.
The biggest risk of driving intoxicated is not getting arrested, it’s getting killed, killing someone else or even worse:
If you ingest several activated charcoal tablets before drinking, will this absorb alcohol in your stomach before it gets into your blood stream, effectively reducing the effect of alcohol on your abilities?
Yes, swallowing activated charcoal tablets can absorb some of the alcohol in your stomach and prevent it from entering your blood stream. Bread or any other food in your stomach can achieve the same results. This is not actually lowering your BAC level.
One way to beat the breathalizer is to refuse to take the test. This is your right and in some states a blatant refusal is easier to fight than a DUI measured by blood, urine, or breath. However in some states refusal also constitutes an automatic 90 day license suspension.
I blew a 0.122. I breathed deep and blew hard like the cop said. I didn’t think it was possible for it to be that high because I had 6 beers starting 9 hours before and hadn’t drank for a few hours.
I was coughing a lot and was just starting to get sick with the flu. Would the start of the flu make my reading artificially higher, because of my lungs being infected? I am also female and didn’t eat for 9 hours, so probably low blood sugar. I requested a blood test, which was taken maybe an hour later and haven’t seen the results. What do you think? I felt at least 90% normal by the time I had my blood drawn besides being tired and nervous. I even weighed myself with the hospital scale out of curiosity, because I am on a diet.
I really don’t think it would be possible for your BAC to be 0.122% at 9 hours after having only 6 beers. So when did you stop drinking?
Most people can process a beer an hour and it would take at least 1.5 beers to reach this level. So if you have 4 beers 9 hours earlier and 2 beers an hour before being stopped then this might be possible.
Having the flu will not make your reading artificially higher unless you were taking alcohol based cold medication.
Low blood sugar will increase the amount that alcohol affects you but will not change your BAC level.
Factors like coming down with the flu, being on a diet, not eating, and having loew blood sugar affect how alcohol effects a person, but has zero effect on their BAC.
BAC is how much alcohol is in your blood which is completely independent from your tolerance level. A person that drinks everyday can function perfectly fine with a BAC of 0.1 while the person who never drinks is falling all over the place with the same BAC level of 0.1. It took the same amount of alcohol for these people to reach this level, its just that they handled it differently.
The law is designed to accomodate people with lower tolerances whose judgement is easily effected by alcohol. Feeling fine has nothing to do with how much alcohol is in your blood, nor does having a high tolerance.
I can’t tell you how your blood test will come out without knowing your weight and the exact time incriments that you drank this beer. At what times did you finish each beer?
Since the blood test was an hour later, the test results might come out slightly lower maybe around 0.08-0.09 which still may be over the limit. However, the courts may use the breathalizer test since it was taken closer to the time that you were pulled over.
I would get a good attorney that deals with DUI/DWI. What state do you live in?
It was around 3 hours without drinking when I got pulled over. I had been drinink from 4:00 to 9:00 roughly. I don’t know the exact quantity of beer I drank and the strength. I had 2-3 22oz light color beers (not lite calories). My friend shared one…but I don’t know exactly how much. I also had a 12oz 9% beer. By the time I had my blood taken it was 2:30AM, from time on my hospital wrist band. I’m 33 yrs old female 128 lbs. Bud lite was my only type of drink for months, so I was a little thrown off by the higher alcohol beer and not knowing quite the amount (oz) per glass at the time. I have a lawyer…he seems optimistic for a plea at least, but you never know. I hope (cross my fingers) that the blood will be around .06.
Ahhh! That explains alot.
One beer is considered to be a 12oz can of budweiser! So a 22 oz bar glass of beer is a double which is actually 2 beers so you actually had twice as much beer for each 22oz beer that you drank!
The color of the beer doesn’t determine it’s strength. A german blonde beer has a really light color, but a high concentration of alcohol. So it’s possible that these beers had twice the alcohol and were twice the size of a can of regular beer. So each beer could equate to 4 beers. It sounds like you were drinking at a brewery which would serve stronger beers.
Budlight is essentially beer water so it will take much more budlight than it would take a local microbrew beer to get drunk.
The prosecutor will try to use the breathalizer results if the blood levels do not indicate that you were drunk. They will not throw out the first test unless your lawyer can pull some legal magic which he might be able to do.
So what state did this happen in? If you are in Arizona you are definitely fucked! California is much more lenient, however they fine the hell out of you and end up costing you more money.
I’d say that you are going to drop at the very least $1,000 fighting your case, in legal, court, and other fees. I really hope that you are not relying on a public defender. They don’t help very much.
Good luck and I hope that it works out well for you.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge on the subject. I’m in TN. I got a wet reckless in 2000 in CA, with a .10. That’s the really bad news probably. I hired a lawyer on my own. I didn’t qualify for the public defender. I’m fine owning up to my mistake and am just going to stop drinking beer all together. I’m afraid I can face 45 days in jail if this will be a real DUI and not plead to something lower, because the CA reckless going be seen as a 1st. It was only 7 yrs ago and I’d need 10 for it to not apply as a 1st.
I might ask if I can go to AA and/or get tested on a regular basis to prove I’m not drinking at all. I did research on alcoholics and I don’t quite fit the profile of a full blown alcoholic, but I did get into trouble so that says something.
Do you have any advice about requesting AA meeting and something else like regular testing to avoid having this as a full dui? And if I do get a full dui I read that some people are allowed to go to treatment instead of jail. Is that still the case in TN? I’m having a meeting with my lawyer on Monday and will let you know if he has anything new to tell me.
So will the wet reckless even be seen on your records in TN since it happened in CA over 7 years ago? You may get lucky and not have it show up on their records even though they look at the past 10 years.
Did you have a CA or a TN license at the time of the wet reckless? If you have a TN license at the time then you are screwed, but if you had a license from another state and now have a TN license, the DMV *might* not have transfered these records.
In CA a wet reckless is not a DUI however it is treated the same. Your attorney may be able to argue that its a lesser charge than an DUI and they may not count it as a prior. However, they usually do count it as a prior if the BAC was measured, its just a reduced charge to suffer lesser fines and penalties at the time, but it is treated as a DUI for all subsequence offenses.
You don’t sound like an alcholic and AA is mainly for people addicted to alcohol. It sounds like you just go out on occassions drink a moderate amount and then drive, however you have been unlucky and have been caught driving under the influence.
I doubt that you will do a full 45 days of jailtime even if it is the minimum mandatory sentence. You will most likely have this reduced so that you have to do some sort of diversion program (classes or treatment program). At the very most your 45 day sentence would be reduced to a work release progam (community service) or a reduced amount of time. They seldom hold relatively law abiding citizens in jail for 45 days, it just costs too much and there is not enough room.
However, you need to fight it with your attorney and plead innocent. They will do some sort of plea bargin to try and get you to plea to a lesser charge. If they don’t you can prolong this process for months or even years until they do.
I would agree to do alcohol classes and just not drive for the time being. Explain that you don’t drink often or that much and you made poor choices about driving after you drink.
In an in TN and my friends have been in similar situations with DUI charges.
Expect to wear an orange vest that says “I AM A DRUNK DRIVER” and spend at least 24 hours of work time picking up trash off the side of the road. This is the new penalty for DUI in TN instead of jailtime.
SEE the following site: http://www.dui.com/dui-library/SimpleBlogCatSearch?category=Tennessee%20DUI
I had the wet reckless in CA in 2000 with a CA license. I got a TN license about a year ago. I don’t know if it the 2000 CA reckless got transfered to my TN record. When I got insurance, the insurance company never said anything about reckless driving being on my MVR and I didn’t bring it up. So I really have no idea. The TN DMV knows I had a CA license, but the prosecutors might have to pull the CA MVR to find out about the reckless driving.
I may have had more than the equivalent of 10 beers without knowing. I’ll just stop drinking all together for a while…a few months or so at least, so I can lower my tolerance level.
Also..kind of unrelated. I didn’t want to call any friends or family to bail me out. I called the first bond companies on the list at the jail and told them I needed 2k but only had $100 and my passport on me. The guy was so nice and bailed me out on my word and passport, but without a co signer. He drove me to my car and I met him later that day with a credit card. Luckily I talked the cop into letting me leave my car there on the street so I didn’t have to pay to get it out.
Damn 2k? So what was your bail amount? The bondsman should only charge you 10% of the total bail amount.
I got into a similar situation for carrying a loaded gun in CA. I got arrested and my bail was $1,000 so I called a bondsman who bailed me out and let me pay him $100 with a credit card after i was released.
So what was your total bail amount?
You may get lucky and they may not transfer your DUI from CA to TN.
The total bail amount was 2k. I left my Credit Card in my car, so had no way of paying anything until I was already bailed out. The bond co. charge is something like $230, so it’s a little higher than 10%. I don’t know if having to drive me 15 min away to my car and meet up with me later for payment had anything to to with the extra $30. I would have had to pay a cab otherwise, so I don’t have a problem with that.
It’s been 17 days and I haven’t gotten my blood alcohol results back. They were supposed to be mailed to me and now there is only one mail day until I go to court. Why is it delayed so much?
I’m paying for the tests and it looks like I may not even have them for court. Is this on purpose? My lawyer says there could be a deal made at the first court date. If my blood test could help me, I will be at a disadvantage without them. Arrggg!
Don’t worry about not having the test results back yet. It takes a while sometimes because they are slow.
Good news and Bad News.
Good News: Your lawyer will delay the case another 30 days so that he can make discovery of the blood test. So nothing will happen at your first court appearance besides a plea, which I assume will be innocent. The judge will have you come back in 30 days when the blood test is ready.
Bad News: Since your attorney has to make an additional appearance due to this delay. He will charge you an additional $200-500 for his time.
Actually he won’t charge more. The first two are covered already. Maybe little ever happens at the first court date.
I was wondering about something else. The nurse took 2 viles of blood. Why? Do they do 2 separate identical tests or do they test for drugs also? I don’t do any street drugs ever, but I did take some sleep medicine the day before that could have still been in my system. I’d guess they would have to test for everything to find it, but I have zero experience with drug tests to know.
Generally the first appearance in court is the arraignment where they say “do you understand the charges against you?” YES and “how do you plea?” innocent/guilty/ or no contest. So nothing else really happens during this appearance, that’s why he charged you for two appearances initially because he can’t get resolved in one. It’s not possible.
The second appearance is a settlement conference where the DA’s prosecutor will try to make a plea bargin to get you to plea guilty on a less charge or an agreement will be reached where you take classes or community service, etc.
So it’s fine that your bloodwork is not back for your arraignment, but it will need to be back for the settlement conference or else he will need to get a continuance which require a third visit where you will be charged an extra fee for his time.
They generally take at least two vials of blood. Either (a) to run different tests ie one for alcohol and one for drugs or (b)for a safeguard in case one of the specimens gets contaminated or damaged.
I have always had them draw at least 2 vials, when having lots of tests ie. hormones, CBC, insulin fasting, metabolic profile, IGF-1, lipids, etc. - they have drawn as many as five vials of blood for each of the different tests.
I asked a cop, but I don’t know if it is true. I’ll ask my lawyer on Monday. The cop said that under the new HIPPA laws, police cannot obtain your health records without your permission or a subpoena.
The court may not care to see the blood test, because they have the breath. They may not ask for them or receive them. So it may be just me that gets them and I can use them to prove my innocence.
I got reckless with no loss of license or suspension. I have to pay a fine and go to some sort of classes or meetings. The deal was made before I saw my lawyer in court. I just had to say I agreed to everything and knew my rights.
That’s cool. So you got off easy. I am glad that you didn’t lose your license or have to do any jailtime.
You’re also lucky that you didn’t have to pick up garbage along the side of the road wearing that orange suit.
So how much was your fine?
Next time make sure that you have plenty of activated charcoal tablets with you!
The fine was $250, but my PO said that I will end up paying $800 for everything. I was surprised how I got off so easy, thanks to my lawyer I guess..not that I ever want to go though this again.
Also, I was drinking fairly evenly over the time I was at the bar 4-9:00.
this is another reason why smoking weed is better than getting drunk. the police have a harder time testing you and if they think you are drunk you can take the breath test and pass.
i wish there was an easy way to beat the breathalizer, but this might mean more accidents and deaths due to dui which would make the roads far more dangerous. so is this trade off really worth the risk?
to whomit may concern
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I got pulled over and did a breath test - i had been taking echinacea which is an herb in an alcohol tincture and had a beer an hour earlier. My breath test was .09. They took me to the station which took about 20 minutes and blood tested me then kept me in there for 6 hours. I paid a lawyer $5500 dollars and he called today to say the blood test was actually .08 (not over the limit). He can get me a deal of $750 and dui reduced to wet reckless. Does it make sense that i could blood test as not over the limit, have been kept in jail overnight and still have to pay this fine?
In California .08 is over the limit, you have to be under .08 to get off. Generally 6 hours is the normal processing time for someone being arrested, this is not considered incarceration since you were in a waiting room rather than a jail cell. Wet reckless is a minor DUI. $750 seems high for the fine, it should be around $250 but this varies from county to county. You got off well all things considered - no loss of license, etc. However $5500 is way too much for your lawyer to charge. It should be between somewhere between $800-$2500 depending on the lawyer.
This happened in California.