If any of the residents at the many college fraternities make a habit of hanging stockings for Christmas, then here is a great gift to stick into any one of those stockings. It is a portable alcohol detector, one sold as a “Safe Mate Breathalyzer.” Like other breathalyzers, some of which appear on ads that promise the ability to “keep the party going,” this alcohol detector is designed to save drinkers a lot of money.

The makers of the alcohol detector promise to save any drinker a good deal of money by preventing the unfortunate chain of events that could follow a pullover by a police officer. If such a pullover were to result in a DUI conviction, then the drunken driver would be hit with some heavy bills. Such a person could have to pay as much as $12,000 for the court costs and the lawyer fees.

Why then does an alcohol detector make a good gift for a resident at a college fraternity? The alcohol detector provides that dorm resident with a way to monitor his blood alcohol concentration (BAC). If the partying resident sees that his BAC has gone above 0.1%, then he knows that he should not plan to drive a vehicle upon leaving the party.

Now the reader might be wondering how an analysis of a drinker’s breath could indicate the amount of alcohol in that drinker’s bloodstream. Why can an alcohol detector provide information about a person’s BAC? The answer to that question requires a short lesson on the human respiratory system.

When a person inhales, air rich in oxygen reaches the air sacs in the lungs. There oxygen becomes transferred to the bloodstream. Then carbon dioxide in the blood moves across the sac membrane and fills the sac with the air that must be exhaled by the person taking a breath. Alcohol in the bloodstream also enters the air sac. The concentration in the exhaled air can thus indicate the concentration of alcohol in the bloodstream.

The portable alcohol detector uses a gas sensor to measure the amount of alcohol in the exhaled air. That gas sensor works on the same principle as a device for doing gas chromatography.  The disposable alcohol detector relies on a different aspect of the chemistry of alcohol.

The disposable detector contains coated crystals. The coating on those crystals allows them to detect the presence of ethyl alcohol. The detector user must pinch the detector to release those crystals. The detector user then breathes on the crystals. Exposure to ethyl alcohol will change the color of those crystals. When all of them have become a different color, then the detector user knows that his or her BAC has risen above 0.1%.

Both the portable and the disposable alcohol detectors could please any fraternity resident lucky enough to find such a gift in his Christmas stocking.

Alcohol detector Harry Green was a mean alcoholimetros detector who chased alcoholics through Mexican streets where we hid in the fields of Cardicomentane near Mayan temples of yesteryear. You’d meet old hobos that would speak of the “alcohol detector” as if he were a demi-god up their with Honixouitze the made up god of alcohol detector Harry Green who was a pathological liar on top of a damn good alcohol detector, alcoholimetros detector, or alcohol to the kids of
Mexico city, where old Bull Lee, the great user was tracked down by the alcoholimetros detector, alcohol sitting there by his blood sucking insect army that was often used by alcohol detector harry green.

Alcohol detector Harry Green, oh yes, he was mean. The drunks ran and yelled for help. He had a alcohol detector team, the dream of the non-delirium screams of dreams that ream the conscience mind. Alcohol detectosr like Harry Green and his team can be seen on the TV, lean, mean, and keen, ready to clean up the mess of the non alcohol detector world teaming and seething with drunks and bunks and humpier wicky umps.

AN AFTER NOTE: This of course was allegory for the horrible problem of public urination. why just yesterday I was walking down the street minding my own business that a young man ran up to me and urinated all over my new pasties that I had bought special for writing this piece of beauty that your eyes have just finished reading alone. It is horrible that the world has come to this and I mean it! Really, what have we come to in this day in age when people can go and pee on a poor man who is just trying to walk home and write something about Harry the alcohol great!

So when I turn over to my wife and whisper alcohol detector and she whispers back alcoholimetros detector a with her sexy accent that she has we both know that I was a wild kid— the wild one— a rebel without a cause and a drunk only because it was against the law at the time and alcoholimetros detectors were mean and visions things and men like Harry Green should burn in delirium hell for eternity. Meanwhile, I guess due to Harry’s efforts, I have turned the corner and am a content man. Perhaps Harry shouldn’t rot in hell at all. I have to go to work real soon. Did I tell you about my job with the Salvation Army working in the “toy shop” handing out toys???? It is a blast aside from this girl who hates my guts but whatever? I am about to go back to see my family for the first time in six years on the 25th on a plane– it is pretty crazy really at Christmas time at the Salvation Army– it is weird being on the other end of things.

We’ve all seen the commercials of young children playing and laughing at a park or in their bedrooms dressing up while a parent shoots the scene with a camcorder.  The child looks happy and is telling his mom or dad to “watch this” as he/she performs a miracle stunt.  Then, the screen goes black.  The next words you see are “Jessica, age 7.  Killed by a drunk driver.”

These are more than just advertisements designed to anger or scare you.  These are advertisements that touch the heart and appeal to the common sense side in all of us.  (The opinion that all of us actually HAVE a common sense side is debatable at another time)  These advertisements encourage all of us to keep in touch with our bodies, with reality and with the fact that we MAY have just had too much to drive our cars without any problems.

Alcohol detector equipment is all the newest rage at parties.  These small, electronic devices allow a user to “blow” into the device which then takes the saliva and measures the content of blood alcohol in your system.  These slim, small digital alcohol detector devices could pass for cell phones.  Their price is equal that of an MP3 player and, at under $70 for most devices, can be easily purchased by anyone.  Kept in a purse or in the glove box of a car, these are easily used in private and, if you so choose, can be given to someone else to test their blood alcohol levels.  The device comes with multiple mouth pieces that can be washed with soap and water.

Alcohol detector devices are misused only when they are passed around to those who know they’ve consumed far too much alcohol to drive safely and the users just want to see how high their levels can go before they black out.  A party game, this, like so many others in the United States, has risen and is a matter of life and death in and of itself.  Drivers who are convicted of driving drunk in the state of Ohio are “tagged” by being forced to display a yellow license plate on the front and rear of their automobiles. During their time of suspension if that driver is seen driving, a patrol officer will pay close attention to the vehicles’ speed, direction and ability to be driven safely.  This “tagging” of driver’s who have had previous convictions for drunk driving alerts the patrol officer that this might be a potential violator.

There are those alcohol detector devices that owners or operators of public drinking establishments can purchase for public use.  These coin-operated alcohol detector devices are great ways for those who are questioning their ability to drive safely (or even their ability NOT to get caught) to determine what their blood alcohol level is.  A person who is pulled over and asked to submit to a alcohol detector test can not refuse based on the fact that during a traffic stop they cited their previous result from Joe’s Tavern 10 minutes ago.  Anyone who tries this will be arrested and their car will go to impound and they will be explaining to a judge how they know that the alcohol detector at Joe’s Tavern was recently calibrated, not messed with and accurate within .0025 of a percent.  Chances are, you might just want to take a puff and blow when you are asked to.

Alcohol detector devices are used to save lives.  They are not intended to ruin your fun or spoil your party.  For just a few dollars, you might be able to save your life, the life of a friend or that of a stranger…like little Emily who was playing dress up for her mom one rainy day.

In many parts of the U.S., state laws attempt to clamp down on those who want to drink and drive. In a number of states, a refusal by a driver to take a chemical test can lead to a suspension of that driver’s license. The chemical test of choice is generally the one conducted by someone in possession of an alcohol detector.

The breathscan alcohol detector is probably the most sophisticated alcohol detector on the market. The user of that detector can count on getting a reliable reading. The implications of that reading will vary, depending on the interests of the person who has chosen to use the alcohol detector.

Sometimes a person at a party will carry on his person an alcohol detector. Such an individual usually hopes to check his or her breath before getting behind the wheel of a car. If a detector shows the blood alcohol content (BAC) to be above 0.02%, then the tested individual should seek an alternate way to get home.

Law enforcement groups, which need to watch for possible drunk drivers, have also come to rely on the alcohol detector sold under the name “breathscan.”  The U.S Department of Transportation, the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, the Colorado Department of Health and the Denver Police Department are among the above-mentioned groups. A positive reading from a breathscan tells testing authorities that a forensic test would not be a waste of taxpayers’ money.

The forensic test is used as a way to confirm the reading on the alcohol detector. Law enforcement officials do not like to ask their fellow workers to sacrifice time for performance of a test that is apt to give negative results. That is why they have come to rely on the results of the alcohol detector, a measure of the chance that a confirmatory test could also be positive.

Should Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) get mad about appearance on the internet of ads for the alcohol detector? In order to answer that question, one should really examine the mentality of the users of the standard alcohol detector. Do such users tend to abandon use of a motor vehicle following even a hint that there is alcohol on their breath, or do such users frequently discount the signal from such a detector?

A device such as the BT5500 Personal Alcohol Detector fits easily into a pocket or a purse. It is about the same size as a cigarette lighter. The user of the BT5500 can quickly obtain information about the possible presence of alcohol on his or her breath. Such a user can not, however, know whether or not the detected presence of alcohol in some exhaled air rises to the level one would find on an intoxicated individual.

A close examination of the ads for the Personal Alcohol Detector suggests that the absence of such information might discourage caution on the part of the detector users. The information in those ads suggests that too many users simply discount the signal from the personal detector, because they realize that detection of alcohol in exhaled air does not always mean intoxication. Ads warn the detector users not to think of the detector as a device with the same precision as the analyzers used by law enforcement workers.

Of course, such warnings usually appear in a smaller print. A larger print is used to imply that the detector will help the detector user to avoid a confrontation with the law. The ads suggest that the detector will prevent a drinker from getting into a motor vehicle while in an intoxicated state. Yet, there is no explanation of how the inability to identify a state of intoxication can prevent an intoxicated driver from getting behind the wheel.

The absence of such an explanation, in combination with the obvious promotion of the alcohol detector, could raise the ire of more than one member of MADD. The absence of such an explanation could lead a gullible teen to assume that a signal from the alcohol detector resulted from the intake of only a few drinks. That same teen could incorrectly assume that his or her blood did not contain a dangerous level of alcohol. That teen could then choose to drive home, and even to offer a ride to others at a party.

The possible occurrence of such a potentially harmful series of events would give members of MADD plenty of reason to become more than a little mad about the effort to encourage teens to use alcohol detectors. MADD must now put money into educating teens about the limited information coming from such a detector.