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Breathalyzers: Really, Really Complicated · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
0:03
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
0:08
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
0:16
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me? Is always this
0:19
Speaker 1: Charles W. Sober as a judge Bryant? Yeah, yeah, Actually
0:25
Speaker 1: when I say sober as a judge, I mean it
0:27
Speaker 1: in relation to that one judge from Gwynette County who
0:30
Speaker 1: was busted on the news for being drunk in the
0:32
Speaker 1: middle of the day on the on the not the stand.
0:35
Speaker 1: Where would he be what's that called? Uh Chambers? Now
0:39
Speaker 1: that's no, No, it was that the It was a
0:41
Speaker 1: a bar. Oh it'll like, you know, like during the day,
0:44
Speaker 1: like for lunch, and I remember on the promo for whatever,
0:48
Speaker 1: you know, news expose, a local news expose they had.
0:52
Speaker 1: It was, um, he not only passed the bar, he
0:55
Speaker 1: stopped and drank at it. I thought you were gonna
0:57
Speaker 1: say he was drinking while judging. Well that was the implication,
1:01
Speaker 1: is that he was doing the morning session out to lunch,
1:06
Speaker 1: get drunk, and then going back and doing the afternoon session. Crocked.
1:10
Speaker 1: The guy thinks it's like nineteen sixty one or something.
1:13
Speaker 1: I would actually love for my judge to be slightly hammered.
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Speaker 1: I don't know, man, because you know what, he's a
1:18
Speaker 1: mean drunk yeah in trouble. Yeah, exactly precisely. Um So
1:24
Speaker 1: I guess that's as good as set up as any. Right, Well,
1:27
Speaker 1: I mean, why don't you want the judge drinking. It's
1:30
Speaker 1: not just because you want him to, you know, pass
1:34
Speaker 1: a sensible sentence, right, It's also he's got to get
1:37
Speaker 1: from the bar back to the courthouse, and on route
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Speaker 1: he could take out an entire family. Yeah, and I
1:43
Speaker 1: doubt if the judges got his rob on on his bicycle,
1:47
Speaker 1: although you shouldn't be driving a bicycle really drunk down
1:50
Speaker 1: the road either. And plus I don't think they're allowed
1:51
Speaker 1: to wear the robes outside of the court. I would
1:54
Speaker 1: wear mine everywhere. I know you would, Chuck, And you
1:56
Speaker 1: wear nothing underneath it, right, Chuck. Give us some stats.
1:59
Speaker 1: There's some pretty add stats from two thousand eight that
2:01
Speaker 1: I know you have on hand, Yes, Josh, if you're
2:04
Speaker 1: talking about traffic accidents that result in death. In two
2:09
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, there were um a little more than
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Speaker 1: thirty seven thousand total deaths by traffic accident, and about
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Speaker 1: close to fourteen thousand of those were alcohol related. Right,
2:21
Speaker 1: that's thirty seven percent of all traffic related deaths were
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Speaker 1: because of alcohol. Yeah, and it's kind of hovered in
2:28
Speaker 1: that range I noticed of the past few years. Um,
2:30
Speaker 1: but I went back just for curiosity's sake, and in
2:37
Speaker 1: of deaths were alcohol related, and there were twice as many.
2:41
Speaker 1: There were twenty six thousand alcohol related deaths by you know,
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Speaker 1: vehicular means. I wonder though, if it's not just because
2:51
Speaker 1: of more driving DRAWNK I'm sure that's something to do
2:54
Speaker 1: with it. But if that it's because there were fewer
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Speaker 1: SUVs on the road as well, it's probably that would
2:59
Speaker 1: skew the ratio. Probably not as advanced testing more lax.
3:03
Speaker 1: I think back then you could literally have an open
3:06
Speaker 1: beer in the car if you weren't drunk, just drive
3:09
Speaker 1: holding the beer and you're like, it's my first one, right,
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Speaker 1: what are you gonna do? You just take a couple
3:13
Speaker 1: of SIPs while the cop pulls you over. That's a
3:15
Speaker 1: the days, Well, Chuck, we are not a teetotal or society.
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Speaker 1: We tried that once, it was called prohibition. It didn't
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Speaker 1: work very well, right, you know, the mentality behind prohibition
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Speaker 1: was alcoholics have to have alcohol. The rest of us
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Speaker 1: who are in alcoholics don't have to have alcohol, so
3:31
Speaker 1: we can reasonably give it up for the benefit of
3:34
Speaker 1: the alcoholics. Right. It didn't work, So we are you know,
3:38
Speaker 1: we we know everybody likes to take a drink here there,
3:40
Speaker 1: So there is a certain amount of alcohol that you're
3:44
Speaker 1: allowed to have. I think in most states it's a
3:47
Speaker 1: zero point zero eight. I think it's every state now.
3:52
Speaker 1: But how to test that? Yes, there's a couple of ways.
3:56
Speaker 1: There's a few ways, um, blood urine. But I think
4:00
Speaker 1: you could make a really excellent case that a police officer,
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Speaker 1: um removing a sample of blood or collecting the urine
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Speaker 1: of a driver he suspects as drunk, would you know,
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Speaker 1: reasonably violate the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure,
4:17
Speaker 1: as well as a couple of human rights. Exactly, you
4:20
Speaker 1: don't want some cops stabbing you with a hypodermic, right,
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Speaker 1: but your breath is expelled without any expectation of privacy,
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Speaker 1: which I think is why we have the breathalyzer and
4:33
Speaker 1: why it's in use. Talk about the breathalyzer truck, which
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Speaker 1: you could also call the most confounded contraptions ever known
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Speaker 1: to man. They're way more advanced than I thought they
4:45
Speaker 1: ever were. I thought there was a little gnome inside
4:48
Speaker 1: that was like smells like Budweiser and lots of it,
4:52
Speaker 1: and then no, yeah, no, it's like some of these,
4:55
Speaker 1: some of these contraptions, there's um a few we're going
4:57
Speaker 1: to talk about. There's three main types, but some of
5:00
Speaker 1: them seem almost um Rube Goldberg ask like total you
5:04
Speaker 1: would expect at some point there's a candle that that's
5:08
Speaker 1: going to burn, a stream that drops an anvil, it
5:10
Speaker 1: hits a catapult that like she's kitten somewhere, like that's
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Speaker 1: one of the processes. Yeah. I just want to point
5:15
Speaker 1: out too before we move on that the point oh a.
5:18
Speaker 1: You know, they've done test over the years and they
5:20
Speaker 1: found that point oh four actually impairs a human being. Yeah,
5:25
Speaker 1: the Medical Association says point oh five five. So I
5:28
Speaker 1: just think I find it odd that that wouldn't be
5:30
Speaker 1: the limit that they would say you can get a
5:33
Speaker 1: little impaired, and that's fine, just go ahead and get
5:35
Speaker 1: behind the wheel, but just not this level of impaired.
5:38
Speaker 1: It just seems we should be blink really hard and
5:41
Speaker 1: frequently while you're driving. I guess that just shows that
5:44
Speaker 1: we are not a teetotal society. So they do understand,
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Speaker 1: like you might have a drink at a bar, having
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Speaker 1: dinner and then get in your car and go home,
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Speaker 1: and that's okay. I guess that's what they say. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: So I mean, at the very least, you can't be
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Speaker 1: arrested for it, although I understand if it's right around
6:01
Speaker 1: point oh eight, it's at the cops discretion. Yeah, And
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Speaker 1: whether or not even get a breathalyzer, yeah, because not
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Speaker 1: all of them have them. And then I think all
6:10
Speaker 1: of them do the field sobriety tests first, because the
6:13
Speaker 1: breathalyzers sort of a pain to get going, so right,
6:15
Speaker 1: but I can do the test. I think the presence
6:17
Speaker 1: the fact that the breathalyzer exists, if you do a
6:20
Speaker 1: field sobriety test and arrest the person without giving him
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Speaker 1: a breathalyzer, I think that that's probably frequently acquitted, is it,
6:27
Speaker 1: I would think so? Yeah, And I've never been I've
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Speaker 1: never blown into a breathalyzer, never been even pulled over
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Speaker 1: for alcohol. Good buddy, Moving on, so let's talk about
6:38
Speaker 1: the breathalyzer um from this article written by Craig Freud
6:42
Speaker 1: and Reach PhD, the only PhD who writes for the
6:46
Speaker 1: site Your buddy, Right, No, I don't know. Oh, I thought, oh,
6:50
Speaker 1: that's right, Tom, Tom chif he has a PhD in
6:53
Speaker 1: School of Hard Knocks. Um. I was surprised to find
6:56
Speaker 1: out how old these things are. In the nineteen forties,
6:59
Speaker 1: they were testing the blood alcohol content by the breath. Yeah,
7:04
Speaker 1: they were called drunk a meters back then. They really were.
7:06
Speaker 1: And it had some guy with like a crumpled fedora
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Speaker 1: and like stars popping around his face. They really were,
7:11
Speaker 1: though they were called drunken meters. And I believe that
7:16
Speaker 1: they did not have like a nose on there that
7:18
Speaker 1: turned more red as you blew into it was like
7:21
Speaker 1: you know, if you if you blew three pink elephates,
7:24
Speaker 1: you're going downtown, buddy. But yeah, that that was when
7:28
Speaker 1: they were first used. But the actual breathalyzer trademark breathalyzer
7:32
Speaker 1: was invented in fifty four by Dr Borkenstein. Yes, from
7:37
Speaker 1: the Indiana State Police, right, yeah, And um that was
7:41
Speaker 1: another thing. I learned that the Indiana State Police have
7:43
Speaker 1: doctors on their payroll. Yeah, I guess so, inventor doctors. Yeah. Um.
7:49
Speaker 1: And the premise of all of the um breath analyzing machines.
7:56
Speaker 1: I don't know what that that category would be called.
7:58
Speaker 1: That sounds right, breath analyzing machine, breath alcohol content, breath
8:04
Speaker 1: analyzing machines, a breaking bubble, right, a piping feature. Um.
8:09
Speaker 1: They they all work on the same principle, and that's
8:12
Speaker 1: that alcohol is actually absorbed into um, the lungs, yeah,
8:19
Speaker 1: and in your blood. Yeah, Like you drink. You take
8:21
Speaker 1: a drink of alcohol, and you know, if you're a
8:25
Speaker 1: reasonable adult and you've been drinking for a little while,
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Speaker 1: you know that it doesn't like, you don't digest that alcohol,
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Speaker 1: and it doesn't like change into maple syrup once it
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Speaker 1: hits your body. It stays as alcohol in your blood
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Speaker 1: to be delicious if it changes into communile syrup. Right.
8:40
Speaker 1: And there's actually a predictable ratio between the blood alcohol content,
8:44
Speaker 1: which is what screws you up and makes you like
8:46
Speaker 1: blink really heavy and drive into other cars, and the
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Speaker 1: aviolar content, which is what's in your lungs and your breath. Right,
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Speaker 1: And it's a one is the ratio. So if you
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Speaker 1: have um milli leaders of alcohol in your breath. You've
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Speaker 1: got one milli leader in your blood stream. That's the formula.
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Speaker 1: That's the basis for all this, right, all breathalyzers or
9:15
Speaker 1: breath alcohol monitoring machine. So so considered this right there,
9:20
Speaker 1: just the fact that we're measuring breath, we're actually measuring
9:22
Speaker 1: a reflection of the blood alcohol content. Okay, that's that's
9:26
Speaker 1: step one removed from actuality. Yes, okay, but again remember
9:31
Speaker 1: the fact that breathalyzers exist um shows a deep and
9:36
Speaker 1: continual um commitment by the state to protect human rights,
9:40
Speaker 1: individual rights, and protect human lives. Right that that too,
9:45
Speaker 1: of course, Chuck. So let's talk about the first one,
9:48
Speaker 1: the breathalyzers, the Kleenex, the aspirin, the xerox of the
9:53
Speaker 1: breath analyzing machines. Uh, Josh, that is the I don't
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Speaker 1: know if it's the most common. I couldn't get any
9:59
Speaker 1: stats on which you know. I think Atlanta uses the
10:02
Speaker 1: infrared one. Actually, do you have like an inn at
10:05
Speaker 1: the d a's office in Atlanta? You know a lot
10:08
Speaker 1: about Atlantic that I do. The breathalyzer, Josh uses a
10:12
Speaker 1: chemical reaction that basically makes it change color. So what
10:18
Speaker 1: happens is you you blow into and I'm glad I'm
10:21
Speaker 1: explaining this one because this is the only one I
10:22
Speaker 1: truly understood. I got um the fuel cell one. All right, Well,
10:27
Speaker 1: hopefully someone can come in and explain what the infrared
10:29
Speaker 1: one means. Maybe Matt. Who's guest producing Matt, Matt, are
10:33
Speaker 1: you still with that band? He says, yes, Blinds and scissors.
10:38
Speaker 1: Uh so, Josh, the breath the actual breathalyzer. What you
10:41
Speaker 1: do is you blow into it. There are two glass
10:43
Speaker 1: vials with a chemical reaction mixture and then a system
10:48
Speaker 1: of photo cells. Why is that funny? I don't know. Uh.
10:53
Speaker 1: So you breathe into the device and it bubbles up,
10:56
Speaker 1: and the bubbles to a mixture of sulfuric acid, tassium dichromate,
11:02
Speaker 1: silver nitrate, and water. Right, so that you have reddish
11:06
Speaker 1: orange dichromate. Right, that's key. And when you breathe into
11:10
Speaker 1: that and it's bubbling it, actually the alcohol in it
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Speaker 1: converts it to a green chromium ion. Right. Yeah, It
11:18
Speaker 1: changes the color to green depending on how much alcohol
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Speaker 1: you've had. It varies on how much color change takes place. Right. Okay,
11:26
Speaker 1: so you're with us so far, right, are you seeing?
11:29
Speaker 1: Like how how difficult this is getting So we've converted
11:34
Speaker 1: alcohol content to a color, right, Okay, go ahead, Chuck. So,
11:39
Speaker 1: like I said, the degree of color change is related
11:41
Speaker 1: to how much alcohol you expel for your breath. So
11:45
Speaker 1: what happens then, is it it goes over to the
11:47
Speaker 1: photo cell system and there's an electric current that causes
11:50
Speaker 1: a needle to move up. Okay, So the color remember this,
11:55
Speaker 1: it's gone from reddish orange, not even red or orange.
11:59
Speaker 1: Just to further comp it's a reddish orange that goes
12:02
Speaker 1: to green, which is weird. The wavelength is measured to
12:06
Speaker 1: determine how green that green ion is because Chuck, remember
12:10
Speaker 1: the butterfly Wings episode. Like like color exists in different wavelengths,
12:14
Speaker 1: it's how it's differentiated. So there's something measuring the wavelength, right,
12:19
Speaker 1: and then it's comparing the green to the reddish orange
12:22
Speaker 1: the original unreacted solution. Yes, And that's what's connected to
12:26
Speaker 1: the meter. Because the cop doesn't just hold it up
12:28
Speaker 1: like a pregnancy test, thank god, and say that looks
12:32
Speaker 1: sort of green to me at least in this like
12:34
Speaker 1: yellowish green, rather than as he's holding it next to
12:38
Speaker 1: your green car, you know. So it's actually hooked up
12:42
Speaker 1: to a device an electric current moves the needle, and
12:45
Speaker 1: then the cop then rotates a knob to bring the
12:49
Speaker 1: needle back to its original zero. Reading is what I
12:52
Speaker 1: gather and how much he turns that knob. The knob
12:56
Speaker 1: has the point oh one point oh two, and that
12:59
Speaker 1: will tell tell him or her, if it's a female cop,
13:03
Speaker 1: how much alcohol you have in your breath. So if
13:06
Speaker 1: you see, if you take a breathalyzer and you see
13:08
Speaker 1: a cop turning a knob and shaking head like wow,
13:11
Speaker 1: and he keeps turning it and turning it, you're probably
13:14
Speaker 1: in trouble. You're crocked. You're crocked exactly. So um, the
13:17
Speaker 1: blood alcohol content has been converted into a color. The
13:21
Speaker 1: color is compared to the original unreacted color. That disparity
13:26
Speaker 1: has turned into an electrical pulse which moves the needle,
13:29
Speaker 1: and you move the needle back to zero by turning
13:32
Speaker 1: a knob. In the amount of degree the knob that's
13:36
Speaker 1: required to get it back to zero is how drunk
13:40
Speaker 1: you are. And then the basketballs on top of the
13:43
Speaker 1: mouse and it's trapped. That's a great recap to by
13:45
Speaker 1: the way, thank you. That was That was the only
13:48
Speaker 1: one I really actually understood too. Well. This should be
13:50
Speaker 1: fun then, because up next Josh is the intoxilizer, and
13:54
Speaker 1: that's the one that uses infrared spectron spectroscopy. So not
14:00
Speaker 1: only can you convert um blood alcohol content where your
14:05
Speaker 1: breath alcohol content into a color, you can shoot infrared
14:09
Speaker 1: light at it and measure how much is absorbed and
14:13
Speaker 1: then figure out how much alcohol is in the blood
14:16
Speaker 1: using that standard ratio. Right, Yes, And that's possible because
14:22
Speaker 1: molecules vibrate constantly, and when you shoot in for a
14:26
Speaker 1: light into a molecule, it will the vibration will change
14:30
Speaker 1: and the bonds, the literal chemical bonds will actually change, right,
14:34
Speaker 1: And we know how much, like say, um, a carbon
14:38
Speaker 1: to oxygen bond in ethanol alcohol, which is what is
14:42
Speaker 1: in our bloodstream, right, how much will be absorbed in
14:46
Speaker 1: how much would be reflected back? Right? Yeah? Okay, so
14:49
Speaker 1: once again you're dealing with wavelengths, right, yeah, So checking
14:53
Speaker 1: this one, it's UM. I strongly strongly recommend uh people
14:59
Speaker 1: who are listening to this podcast go onto the site
15:01
Speaker 1: afterward and look at the batalizer article because there's some
15:04
Speaker 1: really great illustrations that I wouldn't have been able to
15:07
Speaker 1: get this without looking at these um But this one
15:11
Speaker 1: looks kind of like a nitrous ox side chamber, but
15:15
Speaker 1: with two holes in it, right, Um, And then at
15:18
Speaker 1: the end there's a Courts lamp. So the Courts lamp
15:21
Speaker 1: generates an infrared beam that shoots through the nitrous ox
15:25
Speaker 1: side chamber. Right, you blow into the top hole and
15:29
Speaker 1: your breath is in there, and it exhales through the
15:31
Speaker 1: other hole right onto a spinning wheel. Right. Well, no,
15:35
Speaker 1: it goes, it goes through the infrared beam, and then
15:39
Speaker 1: it goes onto this, Yeah, this filter wheel, and each
15:42
Speaker 1: of the there's different lenses in this filter wheel polarized too.
15:47
Speaker 1: I guess just let certain colored ions passed through, right,
15:53
Speaker 1: I know, the the different um I guess the different
15:58
Speaker 1: infrared beams make it through this color wheel hit a
16:02
Speaker 1: photo cell, which then interprets these things the wavelengths into
16:06
Speaker 1: an electrical pulse again, and then that ultimately hits a
16:10
Speaker 1: microprocessor where the information is translated into the blood alcohol
16:16
Speaker 1: content the percentage. Could they make it any more difficult?
16:20
Speaker 1: They could. I think the breath lizer may be more
16:22
Speaker 1: difficult than that one, more complicated. Yeah, this one just
16:24
Speaker 1: seems like Holy cow, because there's like a filter wheel
16:27
Speaker 1: and infrared light. Yeah, but I think they're equally complicated.
16:31
Speaker 1: And that's what they use in Atlanta. This is the
16:33
Speaker 1: one they use, the intoxicator, the intoxicalizer, the eradicator. The
16:39
Speaker 1: intoxicator would be you and I. Did you see the
16:43
Speaker 1: kids in the hall on the soup recently? No, they
16:46
Speaker 1: reunited for the first time. Yeah they did. Ah, they're
16:49
Speaker 1: back with the show. Yeah, to promote mini series or something.
16:53
Speaker 1: They don't. I think it's on HBO or so, although
16:56
Speaker 1: they got nothing on the State. Yeah, you're a big
16:58
Speaker 1: State fan, aren't you love this guy? You love David Wayne,
17:01
Speaker 1: I do in came Marino. Those are my boys. So
17:05
Speaker 1: josh uh, that's pretty much it for the intoxicalizer, right
17:09
Speaker 1: bing bang boom done. Uh. Now this is the the
17:12
Speaker 1: Alco Sensor. I love that there's two, the three, and
17:16
Speaker 1: the four. I guess the one and the two went
17:19
Speaker 1: the way of the Dodo, right. Yeah, they just said
17:21
Speaker 1: everybody was drunk all the time, version one and version
17:23
Speaker 1: two or the drunk a meters of the yea. Then
17:27
Speaker 1: they changed the name two Alco sensor. And luckily the
17:31
Speaker 1: Alco sensor UM is perfected now and it uses fuel
17:35
Speaker 1: cell technology. It's kind of the same thing that they're
17:38
Speaker 1: talking about for cars, which is crazy. It's pretty much
17:40
Speaker 1: the exact same thing. You have a positive post and
17:44
Speaker 1: a negative post, and then between you have a um
17:47
Speaker 1: an electro light, which is just basically a thin film, right. Yeah,
17:51
Speaker 1: that the poster platinum electrodes for all you chemistry nerds
17:54
Speaker 1: out there, right, so this one has, uh, the the
17:58
Speaker 1: suspected drunk driver low through a UM the say, the
18:03
Speaker 1: negative post, that the platinum negative post, and this oxidizes
18:09
Speaker 1: the alcohol present in the breath, right yes, and that
18:12
Speaker 1: produces protons, electrons, and something called acetic acid, right So,
18:16
Speaker 1: but the the acetic acid is actually vinegar, so it's
18:19
Speaker 1: actually producing vinegar in that weird okay that these things
18:22
Speaker 1: stink after a few uses. Um. The the really important
18:27
Speaker 1: part here is that it strips the ethanol, I believe
18:30
Speaker 1: the hydrogen, specifically of its electrons. Now, electrons have this
18:35
Speaker 1: thing called electron flow where they naturally gravitate from negative
18:39
Speaker 1: side a negative post of like a chattery, to the
18:42
Speaker 1: positive and the electron flow, this movement of electrons is
18:46
Speaker 1: actually where we get our electricity from. This is exactly
18:49
Speaker 1: how a fuel cell works. In a in a car
18:51
Speaker 1: that runs on hydrogen. Um, so you direct these the
18:55
Speaker 1: electro light won't let the electrons go through, Okay, So
19:00
Speaker 1: these negatively charged electrons are run through a circuit. In
19:04
Speaker 1: the middle of the circuit, you have, um, this electrical
19:07
Speaker 1: pulse that's there, this electrical electrical meter that's reading the
19:11
Speaker 1: pulse the current right as it passes through to the
19:15
Speaker 1: positive side to rejoin its friends. And however, I guess
19:19
Speaker 1: the more electrons there are present, the more blood alcohol
19:23
Speaker 1: there is. So this this meter converts you know, a
19:26
Speaker 1: high voltage to you know the equivalent B A C. Right,
19:30
Speaker 1: So the more alcohol is oxidized, basically the great of
19:33
Speaker 1: the current. And then the microprocessor reads this current and
19:37
Speaker 1: says being drunk, right or point oh eight? Yeah, this
19:41
Speaker 1: is actually the simplest one, you think, So, yeah, that's
19:47
Speaker 1: for my money, buddy. I'm going with the what is
19:51
Speaker 1: this one called again and toxiclizer because it sounds the coolest.
19:55
Speaker 1: I'm going with the gnome. That's the simplest one. This
19:59
Speaker 1: is drink. Um. I got a couple of things here. Um.
20:03
Speaker 1: Obviously we're not encouraging anyone to drink and drive. Ever, no,
20:07
Speaker 1: I think that's really important because they do say that
20:09
Speaker 1: even one drink can impair you. But they do have
20:12
Speaker 1: some They floated some stats out there about how much
20:16
Speaker 1: you can supposedly drink and and still not blow a
20:19
Speaker 1: d u. I yeah, they say a hundred and eighty
20:22
Speaker 1: pound man, which show me a hundred and eighty pound man.
20:26
Speaker 1: Come on, you gotta get above two bills if you're
20:29
Speaker 1: a dude. Yeah, I think so too. I don't. I
20:32
Speaker 1: think the trend is going the other way though, jeans
20:35
Speaker 1: and everything. Well, I'm gonna have a shirt that says
20:37
Speaker 1: real men way two hundred pounds or more. I'll bet
20:40
Speaker 1: we'd get one on our Facebook page that we do.
20:43
Speaker 1: So a hundred and eighty pound dude can supposedly be
20:46
Speaker 1: at point eight after four drinks, but they don't give
20:49
Speaker 1: an amount of time either. Yeah, that if I have
20:53
Speaker 1: four drinks, and what kind of drinks if I have four?
20:56
Speaker 1: So let's say that it's that standard like one shot,
20:59
Speaker 1: you know, one number of ounces of wine and then
21:01
Speaker 1: like I think of wine or a twelve ounce of
21:05
Speaker 1: beer or a shot is supposedly all the same. Dude,
21:07
Speaker 1: if I have four shots, yeah, I'm I'm definitely impaired.
21:11
Speaker 1: You don't want me getting behind the wheel of a
21:13
Speaker 1: car four shots in an hour, especially exactly. But I
21:16
Speaker 1: think this should be I think they say, like the
21:18
Speaker 1: cop that I read an interview with from Atlanta said
21:21
Speaker 1: that he says, if you can stay within one drink
21:24
Speaker 1: per hour, you're probably gonna be okay, and you shouldn't
21:27
Speaker 1: sweat it, right. And I've also adopted drinking a glass
21:31
Speaker 1: of water while drinking a drink. Oh yeah, because it's
21:38
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily the dilution, although I suspect that that
21:41
Speaker 1: does have an effect. Um. But number one, you're expelling
21:45
Speaker 1: alcohol more frequently because you're drinking a lot of water.
21:49
Speaker 1: What three urine? Yeah, yeah, but that doesn't change your
21:51
Speaker 1: blood alcohol hold on. And then secondly you're drinking, you're
21:54
Speaker 1: spreading it out over more time because you're not just
21:57
Speaker 1: drinking alcohol the whole time. You drinking alcohol and water.
21:59
Speaker 1: So that's say, doubling the amount of time it takes
22:02
Speaker 1: to finish a drink. So in theory, you could play
22:04
Speaker 1: boggle while you drank and as long as it took
22:07
Speaker 1: more times. But I wouldn't play boggle. You couldn't thinking
22:10
Speaker 1: men tavern, they have all those games there you No,
22:15
Speaker 1: I'm not plugging them. It's just a boat local bar
22:18
Speaker 1: that has like board games, so it's fun. Do you
22:20
Speaker 1: want to give the address? No, I don't. It's on
22:22
Speaker 1: College Avenue indicator. Um. But the same cop also verified
22:27
Speaker 1: what I thought, which is they always do a field
22:30
Speaker 1: sobriety test first, which is I mean there's different variations
22:34
Speaker 1: the count. Your count better do the ABC's backwards. Yeah,
22:38
Speaker 1: I can't do that right now, dead sober, there's no
22:41
Speaker 1: way you could. I think you should right now. No,
22:46
Speaker 1: I've tried it. I know it starts with Z and uh.
22:51
Speaker 1: Here's another tip too, is you should never ever sing
22:54
Speaker 1: the alphabet song. If you're pulled over by a cop
22:57
Speaker 1: and they asked you to say the alphabet, not a
22:59
Speaker 1: good move would singing the song like people? I think
23:03
Speaker 1: it wasn't that judge, but some public figure recently did that.
23:08
Speaker 1: I think one of the like when I Na Mel
23:10
Speaker 1: Gibson sang the Alpha that song. Uh, and Josh. Of
23:14
Speaker 1: course there are other And like I said, we're not
23:17
Speaker 1: telling you how to beat an alcohol test. No. I
23:19
Speaker 1: think the point here is for for this stuff we're
23:21
Speaker 1: about to talk about. We're talking about the the aviolar
23:25
Speaker 1: concentration the amount of alcohol concentrated in your breath. It's
23:29
Speaker 1: not constant. It depends on what phase of the breath
23:32
Speaker 1: you exhale. Um. And I think people who are um
23:36
Speaker 1: a little drunk or drunk and are thinking like this
23:39
Speaker 1: could use this to their advantage. But at the same time,
23:42
Speaker 1: cops might use the opposite to their advantage as well.
23:44
Speaker 1: And I think it's smart to know, you know, so
23:47
Speaker 1: you don't get an unnecessary beef against you well, and
23:50
Speaker 1: it provides it results in an inaccurate reading, and you
23:54
Speaker 1: want accuracy. Whether it's you trying to influence it or
23:56
Speaker 1: the cop trying to influence it, they can be influenced.
24:01
Speaker 1: Like so, hyperventilating, Josh, will lower You're reading. This feels wrong,
24:06
Speaker 1: it does, but it actually will lower. They've done studies
24:09
Speaker 1: and if you hyperventilate for twenty seconds, it will actually
24:13
Speaker 1: decrease the reading by ten. And let's say if you
24:16
Speaker 1: ran up a couple of flights of stairs they and
24:19
Speaker 1: then blow in. They said it will decrease it by
24:20
Speaker 1: twenty because it's a more shallow breath. And I think
24:24
Speaker 1: that the breath at the bottom of the lungs is
24:26
Speaker 1: richer in alcohol content. That's why the cops says, blow
24:30
Speaker 1: harder and deeper when you're blowing on the breathalyzer, right,
24:33
Speaker 1: That's that's I I have a problem with anybody trying
24:37
Speaker 1: to UM, trying to get out of you know, breathalyzer reading. UM.
24:42
Speaker 1: But I also have a problem with UM a police
24:45
Speaker 1: officer trying to jack up in a breathalyzer reading. And
24:49
Speaker 1: apparently if you if you breathe really deeply, really hard,
24:53
Speaker 1: you exhale from the bottom of your lungs, the reading
24:56
Speaker 1: can be UM one and a half times more with
24:59
Speaker 1: the actual blood alcohol content is which is significant when
25:03
Speaker 1: you're talking about like point oh eight percent or you know,
25:06
Speaker 1: seven point one percent or something like that. Yeah. Uh.
25:10
Speaker 1: The only problem with these as far as someone out
25:13
Speaker 1: there thinking, you know what, I'll just I can hyperventilate
25:15
Speaker 1: beat this is you forget that the cop is there
25:17
Speaker 1: at all times. You can't hyperventilate in front of you.
25:23
Speaker 1: Do you're gonna get shot in the back. So what
25:25
Speaker 1: you're probably gonna end up doing is breathing just like
25:27
Speaker 1: they say to and you'll be pinched. I think ultimately, though,
25:32
Speaker 1: all numbers can be tossed out the window. If you're
25:35
Speaker 1: a driver, you know, if you're impaired, if you shouldn't
25:37
Speaker 1: be driving. Yeah, don't and um, don't believe any of
25:42
Speaker 1: those myths about pennies in your mouth or mints or
25:45
Speaker 1: onions or in nothing will affect your blood alcoholic content.
25:48
Speaker 1: The MythBusters blew that wide open. Snopes blew it wide open.
25:52
Speaker 1: Common sense blows up wide open. And uh, you can
25:56
Speaker 1: also I checked into it. You can buy a breathalyzer.
25:58
Speaker 1: They have consumer models, right, and they have some that
26:01
Speaker 1: are hooked up to the ignition of your car. Yeah,
26:04
Speaker 1: the one lote of you start. Yeah, but apparently you
26:06
Speaker 1: can get the top rated one is about a hundred
26:08
Speaker 1: and fifty bucks. So if you're that big of a
26:10
Speaker 1: lush that you want to purchase one of these and
26:13
Speaker 1: carried around, or maybe you're being really responsible. I mean,
26:16
Speaker 1: it depends on how you look at it. Yeah, I
26:18
Speaker 1: finish the sentence. Well, then you can buy one for
26:20
Speaker 1: a buck fifty, keep in your purse or your or
26:22
Speaker 1: your pocket, and then before you leave the bar, just
26:25
Speaker 1: blow into it and say, you know what, I should
26:26
Speaker 1: weigh a little while. That's so, that's breathalyzers. And again
26:32
Speaker 1: we would strongly recommend you go well, we strongly recommend
26:36
Speaker 1: you don't drink and drive and um. Secondly, we strongly
26:40
Speaker 1: recommend you go onto how stuff works dot com and
26:42
Speaker 1: look up breathalyzers. You're gonna find some pretty You're you're
26:46
Speaker 1: gonna find some illustrations that will make you go, Okay,
26:49
Speaker 1: I get it, nitrous ocks side charge, I know it. Right. Then,
26:53
Speaker 1: all right, Chuck, what do we have? Do we have
26:56
Speaker 1: listener mail? Yeah, well let's do the listener mail chime.
27:02
Speaker 1: And now let's do a little bit of plugging first. Okay,
27:06
Speaker 1: plug it south By Southwest. Yes, go to H T
27:11
Speaker 1: T P colon slash slash panel picker one word dot
27:16
Speaker 1: s x s W dot com, sign up and you
27:20
Speaker 1: can vote for us. We're under interactive panels stuff you
27:24
Speaker 1: should know. Yeah, and it'll walk you through. You know,
27:26
Speaker 1: we're trying to get to south By Southwest next march
27:29
Speaker 1: on a panel and visit the fine folks of Austin,
27:31
Speaker 1: Texas and perhaps do a trivia been there too if
27:35
Speaker 1: we can, If we can make the panel, so if
27:37
Speaker 1: you click on that and click your little thumbs up
27:39
Speaker 1: to vote for it, it'll say, oh, you haven't signed
27:42
Speaker 1: up yet, and it'll walk you through the sign up procedure.
27:44
Speaker 1: And I need to point out that will not put
27:46
Speaker 1: you on some spam list. You won't get emails. You know,
27:48
Speaker 1: they swear up and down. Yeah, they promise, it's just
27:50
Speaker 1: so they can verify that you're a real person and
27:52
Speaker 1: all that. And then, uh, we are on Facebook and Twitter.
27:56
Speaker 1: We're no Steve Slater, but we're worth following. Uh and
28:01
Speaker 1: um KIVA www dot k I v a dot org
28:06
Speaker 1: slash team slash stuff. You should know we have our
28:10
Speaker 1: own micro lending team. If you want to learn a
28:12
Speaker 1: little bit about that, And if you have questions or
28:15
Speaker 1: you're confused about micro lending and why we do it,
28:18
Speaker 1: you can read our two part blog post why we
28:22
Speaker 1: Lend on Cuba s Team s Y s K. Yeah,
28:26
Speaker 1: Josh wrote a really great long form too part thing
28:29
Speaker 1: that's blog post. It really spells out CIVA and everything
28:32
Speaker 1: you need to know about it, and well, thank you. Um,
28:36
Speaker 1: I almost forgot chuckers. Um. We have a very robust
28:40
Speaker 1: T shirt gallery. Um, not just the winning designs, but
28:44
Speaker 1: a lot of the ones that came close not so close,
28:47
Speaker 1: basically pretty much all of them. I think there's like
28:49
Speaker 1: ten fifteen that aren't up there, but there's a bunch
28:53
Speaker 1: more and it's like looking into the minds of like
28:56
Speaker 1: stuff you should know listeners. It's really interesting. There's some
28:59
Speaker 1: cool designs on they see him go to um let's
29:02
Speaker 1: see how stuff works dot com slash t shirt pictures
29:08
Speaker 1: and it's te hyphened shirt hyphen pictures dot htm and
29:12
Speaker 1: that will take you to it. Awesome. Yeah, it's a
29:15
Speaker 1: listener mail. Finally, Okay, Josh, I'm gonna call this love
29:20
Speaker 1: from Jamaica. Remember how in the in the grow Houses
29:23
Speaker 1: one when we talked about I thought Jamaica might be
29:26
Speaker 1: the highest rate of marijuana consumption. Yeah, it turned out
29:28
Speaker 1: it was Papua New Guinea. Yeah, and then Africa, all
29:31
Speaker 1: over Africa. Um. So this is from Shoonnari in Jamaica.
29:35
Speaker 1: She says. Here in Jamaica, we don't have indoor grow houses,
29:39
Speaker 1: but more outside cultivation. People grow it outside in deep,
29:42
Speaker 1: overgrown bush country, far away from prying eyes, and also
29:45
Speaker 1: in the mountains where people don't venture much. They grow
29:48
Speaker 1: with them amongst regular crops like bananas and coffee and
29:50
Speaker 1: sugar to mask the appearance from the sky. And they're
29:53
Speaker 1: normally family operations or local, locally based where the whole neighborhood,
29:58
Speaker 1: so to speak, we'll keep a watch out for cops,
30:01
Speaker 1: and the whole neighborhood benefits in some way from the
30:03
Speaker 1: influx of cash that the marijuana provides plus free weed,
30:07
Speaker 1: I guess. So. Uh. Sometimes the local law enforcement will
30:10
Speaker 1: raid these growing operations, but the growers still will set
30:13
Speaker 1: traps for them that will hamper their willingness to even
30:16
Speaker 1: go into these areas. So you got like a badger trap,
30:19
Speaker 1: and they're like a tiger pit. Yeah, cops like, I
30:22
Speaker 1: ain't going in there. Yeah, you see one cop fall
30:24
Speaker 1: into a tiger pit, you're not gonna follow him. Well,
30:26
Speaker 1: listen to this. One trap I saw on the news
30:28
Speaker 1: sometime back. Takes the form of hidden water spikes. So
30:32
Speaker 1: they'll basically make a muddy pond and grow marijuana on
30:36
Speaker 1: top of this. And in these ponds there are solid
30:40
Speaker 1: paths and there are also paths with spikes sticking up.
30:45
Speaker 1: That's a tiger pit. Oh, is that what it is? Yeah,
30:47
Speaker 1: it's a hole with like that. You dig a pit
30:51
Speaker 1: and then at the bottom there's these sharpened sticks all
30:53
Speaker 1: sticking up, so when you fall in, you're in deep,
30:56
Speaker 1: deep trouble and my blessing. I thought a tiger pit
30:58
Speaker 1: was like a pit with a tiger in it. It
31:02
Speaker 1: may have a tiger in it, but it's in pale
31:04
Speaker 1: line steaks. I wouldn't last five minutes in the Jamaican
31:07
Speaker 1: Jamaica in no way. Uh. In general though, because of
31:10
Speaker 1: our Rastafarian heritage, where marijuana is part of the religious practice,
31:15
Speaker 1: marijuana was illegal but decriminalized for domestic use. So as
31:20
Speaker 1: a result, seeing someone smoking pot in the open is
31:22
Speaker 1: not strange, but it can land you a fine. So
31:26
Speaker 1: this comes from Shinari. I think I said SHARONI didn't
31:30
Speaker 1: I Shari in Jamaica? He said, CHARONI doesn't ring a
31:34
Speaker 1: bell all right, So thank you Shinari for listening to Yeah,
31:39
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I didn't know we had any listeners. And no,
31:42
Speaker 1: she's not in Jamaica. That's her home of Jamaica. Now
31:45
Speaker 1: she lives everything, does she really? Okay? Well, thanks Shinnari.
31:48
Speaker 1: We appreciate you keeping the home fires burning down there
31:51
Speaker 1: in Jamaica. Do you have any stories about tiger pits
31:55
Speaker 1: or other kind of clever traps or rude group? Goldberg
31:58
Speaker 1: esque Divide says, we want to hear about him, right, Chuck.
32:02
Speaker 1: We want to see schematics. Actually, you can email them
32:06
Speaker 1: to us at stuff podcast. At how stuff works dot com.
32:14
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
32:16
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
32:20
Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the how stuff works dot
32:22
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