Saturday, May 20, 2017

Not the Onion: Volunteers needed to smoke pot for science

Via RedditResearchers at Washington State University need volunteers for a study to develop a breathalyzer for pot.
The breathalyzer would need to accurately detect “acute exposure” to tetrahydrocannabinol, WSU Professor Emeritus Nicholas Lovrich, doctoral candidate Peyton Nosbusch and City Councilor and research assistant Nathan Weller told the Pullman League of Women Voters on Thursday afternoon.

As part of the study, volunteers will be asked to answer questions regarding food, drink and other edibles they have recently consumed before being asked to give preliminary blood, breath and oral fluid samples at Pullman Regional Hospital, Lovrich told the League during a Brown Bag meeting at the Community Congregational United Church of Christ.

Participants will then be asked to purchase marijuana from a state-licensed retail store and smoke it in a private residence until a personal self-assessed high is reached. They will then return to the hospital by taxi to give additional bodily samples.

As an optional step, participants will also be asked to interact with law enforcement volunteers and allow them to conduct the standard field sobriety test.

If successful, the study could aid in the development of a field procedure for the detection of the presence of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, and eventually help prevent vehicle accidents or deaths due to drug-impaired driving.

(Link to more)

15 comments:

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I'm going to be working daytime at my Saturday job. I made some scheduled posts, please come back for more new stuff.

cliff claven said...

It's a proven fact people who smoke marijuana are smarter and more interesting than those who don't.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

ed, will you do it for science? I say you and nick do it together and then let the blog comments begin!

edutcher said...

I have better sense, but I can believe the desperation in some quarters now that stats are coming in from CO after 5 years of legal mary jane.

rcommal said...

I think that it's important to do this. I especially think that it's important to do this on account of the legitimate uses of medical marijuana (as opposed to the use of medical marijuana as an end-run).

Facts are important. Let's gather them and see where they might lead.

rcommal said...

Also, I'm not on board with the "smoke" pot thing, the notion of all of that as indicated by the headline on this post. Although a cigarette smoker [though not an "inside" one for well more than 20 years] and one who is determined to quit prior to my surgery in late August/early September, there's no compelling reason to encourage anyone to, literally, "smoke" pot for medicinal reasons. Better to ingest it, akin to other therapeutic chemical interventions, in controlled and labeled manners, if at all, is the stance to which I am so far tending.

rcommal said...

To be clear: I have precisely -0- intent to take advantage of my state's medical marijuana provision in connection with my own upcoming surgery. 100% the opposite, and that's the fact of it. However, that said, someone else within our immediate extended family, might fight find that option useful over the course of at least four months of rigorous chemo and radiation therapy starting this week, and I would not auto-remove such an option off the table for that person, depending on how that particular reality/situation works out for that individual person.

chickelit said...

@r,l: Is chemotherapy part of your scheduled post-op?

Trooper York said...


I hope all turns out well for your family member rc.

Chemo is nothing to fool around with. I wish there was a homeopathic method that worked.

All the best. My prayers are with you. If the prayers of a sinner mean anything.

rcommal said...

@chickelit: I don't have cancer. My surgery has nothing to do with chemo, radiation, or cancer, other than delaying it and trying to organize it around everything around 1) someone else whose condition involves both chemo and radiation atop of many other health issues (the reason we we so abruptly uprooted and move back East) and 2) joint close family members who need first to pay attention to that person, with which priority I agree not just 100%, not just 200%, but even more. And will do everything I have to, in order to not just support, but encourage.

rcommal said...

@Trooper York :

Thank you. I appreciate this more than you know. Full stop. And, if you would just keep it in mind every now and again, just once a while, I've always been serious sinner with just a streak of saint; after all, that's the reason I was drawn to you in earliest days.

--

As for the homeopathic thing: I'm interested as to why you brought up that.

I have been following Mrs. Troop's blog, and all the stuff you've been doing w/r/t to health for a long time now (but quietly: that is, mostly without comment).


I've not commented, much, because I was certain my input would not be welcome.

That said:

Leading up to my own surgery, as well as dealing with other things just having to do with my own health, I'm doing it entirely just with lifestyle changes (even though it's especially hard, because, right now, I can't actually put physical activity into the mix, which thing would otherwise be obvious). Offered painkillers, I said no. Offered steroid/cortisone shots, I said no.

Trooper, you mentioned "homeopathic." That's a loaded term, and so of course I'm so curious as to why you employed it.

Whatever.

I'm mostly about the anti-inflammatory, these days, life-style and diet-wise. (For just one example, only as a reference.)

On her blog, I entirely get your wife's references to certain spices, for just one instance, not to mention certain of those things she avoids. : ) We don't share the same food sensitivities, but we do share some things that we avoid and some things that we employ, for different reasons but in terms of, I guess, a similar goal, if not exactly identical.

rcommal said...

And, because I owe something to my own self, every now and again, I just want to say this:

Way back in the day, when I was a church-lady, I single-handed could, and did, repeatedly provide multiple Lenten soup suppers for up to 100 people taking into account mostly meat-eaters but also vegetarians, vegans, gluten-sensitives, dairy-sensitives, soy sensitives, children and babies.

For many years after, I beat up myself for my failures.

Now, I'm considering looking at myself from a different view.

rcommal said...

For good reason.

rcommal said...

The truth is: i have remarkably little for which to apologize. That is what it is, and so it goes.

rcommal said...

No shame with regard to the following, for example (because it's an example that I never have been liar):

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2005/09/quite-frankly-if-theyd-been-able-to.html?showComment=1125857100000#c112585711702914124