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

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

#61

Post by wolco »

chadash wrote: post #49
woah wrote: post #4

Sounds like it’s well-intentioned, but I’m afraid that given the incentives of all parties involved here, and the complexity of the technology, there will be a lot of false positives. It’s obvious that the police will want a device that produces more convictions, no point in disputing that. I’m wondering if you can elaborate on what incentives your company has to produce accurate devices, against your customer’s unst…

> What’s keeping you in check? It's going to be fairly easy to test this. You take one group of people who haven't smoked in the last few hours and you test them. Make sure it doesn't go off. You take another group who have smoked (I'm sure plenty of college students would be happy to sign up for this trial) and you test them, make sure it does go off. It's pretty simple. It's a machine with an empirical number, so y…

It is not that simple. Within the control group of non-smokers you need people who smoked yesterday or 12 hours before to determine if the testing is successful.

But even that is too simplist. You need to activity give a specific dose to a group with similiar profiles. You need to test with different profile groups.

Remember we are testing currently high not has been high.

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

#62

Post by Noah_SannTek »

reroute1 wrote: post #53
Noah_SannTek wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder, if we got the opportunity to talk to the folks that invented the alcohol breathalyzers, if they had the same kind of pushback? Alcohol breathalyzers help deter drunk drivers, but there is nothing currently out there to help deter cannabis-impaired drivers. There's definitely an education piece associated with this.

Maybe, but also comparing driving under the influence of alcohol with driving under the influence of cannabis is definitely not congruent.

This gets us to a weird gray zone of.. how impaired is too impaired? Many would say that any level of impaired is not ok, and I would definitely agree. Check out what the national highway traffic safety administration has to say about this: https://feeldifferentdrivedifferent.org/

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

#63

Post by davidw »

cmiles74 wrote: post #50
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #15

So many naysayers here, many of which probably aren't sharing the road with cannabis consuming drivers in a region where it is 100% legal like here in Canada. I've consumed it many times, and I know how impaired I'd be behind the wheel. It terrifies me to think of all the idiots who are probably out there driving while stoned, pretending they're "perfectly fine." EDIT: cool, these guys are around the corner from wher…

It's legal where I live and the drivers on the road have not changed significantly. For those opposed to legal cannabis use, it's easy to blame any traffic infraction on cannabis. I don't think we have data available that backs up that hypothesis. In areas where cannabis has been legalized for recreational use, the incidence of traffic accidents has remained the same. https://www.nber.org/papers/w24417

Not opposed to legal cannabis at all, but as a cyclist, I'm very opposed to impaired driving whether it's booze, pot, or staring at a mobile phone.

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

#64

Post by slg »

Noah_SannTek wrote: post #39
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.

I'm sorry, but this is just not true. People are innocent until proven guilty. If there is no evidence, then they aren't convicted (EDIT: for the record, testimony is evidence). Adding an avenue to collect more evidence is going to cause more people to be convicted. Sure, you will probably get some people exonerated, but there is no question that you will get a larger number of people convicted. I am not going to weigh in on the ethics of that, but you should at least be honest about the repercussions of your work.

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

#65

Post by jaynetics »

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…

Excellent point. I'm not sure how "fixed" the correlation is for alcohol though. Someone who almost never drinks will be quite impaired at 1‰ BAC, whereas someone who drinks several times a week might not be affected that much. Of course this variation is comparatively small. When it comes to THC, individual resistance really differs by orders of magnitude. Seems the body can adapt to psychoactive agents more easily than to cytotoxins such as alcohol.

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

#66

Post by wolco »

i_am_nomad wrote: post #47
svnpenn wrote: post #16

The war on drugs has ruined literally millions of lives: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs#Arrests_and_incarcer... with all due respect, I hope you fail miserably.

That seems like a pretty harsh thing to say - intoxicated driving has also ruined quite a few lives.

Quite a few? Would love to see stats or at least personal stories where this was the case.

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

#68

Post by jabits »

danappelxx wrote: post #52
svnpenn wrote: post #16

The war on drugs has ruined literally millions of lives: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs#Arrests_and_incarcer... with all due respect, I hope you fail miserably.

This is not about the war on drugs, this is about making roads safer. Driving under the influence is illegal whether the influencing drug is legal or not.

Driving under the influence should be detected by professional law enforcement observation. This can be easily backed up with video footage. Then if suspected after being pulled over, tested clinically. This is not that difficult. Even if a certain level of any substance is detected and measured, level of impairment is not.

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

#69

Post by wolco »

davidw wrote: post #63
cmiles74 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's legal where I live and the drivers on the road have not changed significantly. For those opposed to legal cannabis use, it's easy to blame any traffic infraction on cannabis. I don't think we have data available that backs up that hypothesis. In areas where cannabis has been legalized for recreational use, the incidence of traffic accidents has remained the same. https://www.nber.org/papers/w24417

Not opposed to legal cannabis at all, but as a cyclist, I'm very opposed to impaired driving whether it's booze, pot, or staring at a mobile phone.

What about coffee, sugar or people driving with headaches?

Those three can really affect my driving.

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

#70

Post by codingdave »

cmiles74 wrote: post #50
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #15

So many naysayers here, many of which probably aren't sharing the road with cannabis consuming drivers in a region where it is 100% legal like here in Canada. I've consumed it many times, and I know how impaired I'd be behind the wheel. It terrifies me to think of all the idiots who are probably out there driving while stoned, pretending they're "perfectly fine." EDIT: cool, these guys are around the corner from wher…

It's legal where I live and the drivers on the road have not changed significantly. For those opposed to legal cannabis use, it's easy to blame any traffic infraction on cannabis. I don't think we have data available that backs up that hypothesis. In areas where cannabis has been legalized for recreational use, the incidence of traffic accidents has remained the same. https://www.nber.org/papers/w24417

> I don't think we have data available that backs up that hypothesis.

I think this is another key point in favor of this device. The traffic safety data that exists comes from police reports. Each officer has to key in the information when they handle an accident, so having a device like this in the hands of those officers is the first step in starting to build that kind of data set.

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