Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Launch HN: SannTek (YC S19) – Breathalyzer for Cannabis

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 421 posts

Re: Launch HN: SannTek (YC S19) – Breathalyzer for Cannabis

#31

Post by chadash »

I don't understand the negativity in many of the comments here. I'm all for legalization of marijuana, but I actually think that the inability to test for people driving high is a very reasonable argument against legalization. I generally feel that people should be able to make their own choices, but not if those choices involve driving a 3000 pound piece of metal down the highway while impaired.

Yes, we need to be certain that this isn't giving false positives. But if anything, this is step towards more legalization efforts on the whole (and fewer people driving high).

Re: Launch HN: SannTek (YC S19) – Breathalyzer for Cannabis

#32

Post by Noah_SannTek »

elif wrote: post #6

Do you struggle with the ethics of assisting in the arrest of, in my state, 90% minorities for a crime with dubious safety grounds?

This is a really important topic, and we were hoping someone would bring it up. Our device is designed to output objective results to shift the burden of proof from subjective observation to the output of a device. We would expect the number of false positives to decrease as a result of our device.

With that being said, we're also allocating a significant amount of our resources to have full-time employees, with lived experiences, research the implications of our technology on minority communities.

Re: Launch HN: SannTek (YC S19) – Breathalyzer for Cannabis

#33

Post by dragonwriter »

tj-teej wrote: post #19

I remember reading a story about a Grandmother who ate a strong pot brownie everyday for medical reasons and it had little noticeable effect on her. We know there's a direct correlation between alcohol levels and driving impairment, but I've not seen evidence for this link with THC. Are there studies that have found this? (Please forgive my ignorance...) If someone uses X amount of marijuana (what this tech can estab…

> If someone uses X amount of marijuana (what this tech can establish), do we know that this will always have effect Y on the driver?

That's not the relation we have with alcohol, either; we have an on-averagr relationship. Which is why drunk driving laws tend to prohibit both being actually impaired by alcohol regardless of BAC and having a BAC over a certain level even without any other evidence of impairment.

Drugged driving laws generally prohibit actual impairment due to any drug (including marijuana/THC), without specifying testing thresholds as an alternative basis, largely because we don't have as much testing levels vs. impairment data for other drugs.

A test could provide evidence supporting the conclusion that observed erratic behavior was impairment due to the drug without being compared against a fixed “prohibited” threshold.

Re: Launch HN: SannTek (YC S19) – Breathalyzer for Cannabis

#34

Post by russh »

core-questions wrote: post #22
jongold wrote: post #2

Have you considered not selling technology to cops?

Have you considered respecting the professionals who keep us safe, and not assuming that they're all somehow bad people out to get good folks who just happen to be "in the wrong place at the wrong time"?

I have but I also read the news.

Re: Launch HN: SannTek (YC S19) – Breathalyzer for Cannabis

#35

Post by rudedogg »

Noah_SannTek wrote: post #10
jongold wrote: post #2

Have you considered not selling technology to cops?

Yes! There has been interest from safety-sensitive industries such as transportation, energy, manufacturing, construction, and oil & gas to use our device to help prevent life-threatening accidents in the workplace.

Wouldn't the companies be benefited by using blood tests since they will return positive after longer periods of time? Basically, don't blood tests allow companies to say "sorry no workers compensation - you were high when that beam cut off your leg"?

But also, I have mixed feelings about this from a moral/ethics perspective. I think it's going to do more harm than good by making testing easier and more prevalent (we already have blood tests for cases where someone was injured by a driver, etc.). The good thing is it may save some regular users from being labeled as impaired versus a blood test. Outside of that small case it all seems bad for society to me..

Re: Launch HN: SannTek (YC S19) – Breathalyzer for Cannabis

#37

Post by butterfi »

fanzhang wrote: post #20

Awesome products and this makes so much sense given the rise of the cannabis market. I am surprised by the amount of comments here that seem like they are more or less arguing against enforcement of DUI laws that will save lives.

I think a lot of folks here are aware of what a double-edged sword this could be. Getting impaired drivers off the road is a worthy goal, but these kinds of tools have had devastating consequences when misused by authority. Accuracy is also a major component here, and I believe all parties have acknowledged how challenging that problem is.

Re: Launch HN: SannTek (YC S19) – Breathalyzer for Cannabis

#39

Post by Noah_SannTek »

kenforthewin wrote: post #13

Given that marijuana arrests disproportionally target people of color, have you considered the ethical implications of bringing your product to market? The accuracy of your device doesn't affect how or on whom it will be used.

We absolutely consider ethical implications for bringing this product to market. We currently live in a world where it's a "free-for-all", and officers establish reasonable suspicion, which leads to an arrest, without any objective evidence. We hypothesize that this is part of the reason why there's a higher number of PoC arrested. This doesn't happen with alcohol, because there is an objective device.

Re: Launch HN: SannTek (YC S19) – Breathalyzer for Cannabis

#40

Post by eof »

How does your device work for people who have taken edibles vs smoking?

I am not a chemist nor biologist, but ethanol escapes through mucus membranes and afaik, thc does not.

So, I am curious what mechanism has thc in the breath while people are “impaired” but not while they are heavy users that haven’t had any thc for 24 hours.

Post reply on HN