Driving drunk, high, or even tired can be a recipe for disaster. Not only do you risk being arrested but you risk being involved in a serious accident. With marijuana laws in flux, police agencies across the nation are on the look-out for people who might be high behind the wheel, and the makers of a new phone app hope to help smokers avoid getting pulled over and possibly charged with a serious crime.
The app is called CheckPlusBalance and was recently released for iPhones as a free tool for measuring “personal performance.” According to a press release form the manufacturers:
CheckPlusBalance can help individuals assess their performance regardless of the cause of possible impairment, including marijuana, alcohol, medication, illness or fatigue. CheckPlusBalance was developed specifically to help people who want to be confident that they can perform at a safe level after taking medication, alcohol, recreational drugs, or who have any reason to confirm their current level of functioning.
Users establish a personal “baseline” with the app when they are sober and feeling “normal”. Then, the app can reportedly recognize when they deviate from this personal normal, recognizing when they may be impaired and should stay off the road.
It measures memory, balance, reaction, and time and was designed using technology paired with 60 years of legal experience and study. The people behind the app say they have taught and published extensively on the topics of technology and impairment.
“Use of this performance-based technology better promotes responsible cannabis use and addresses public demands for alternative ways to discourage driving under the influence,” said NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano of the app.
Law enforcement would have you think the best way to keep the roads safe is to identify anyone who has puffed on a joint or had a few drinks. But marijuana and alcohol affect each person differently. That isn’t to say you should drink a six-pack and get on the road because you “feel fine”, but that having an objective tool to help you measure your intoxication rate could save you a trip to jail.
Driving while high to the point of being impaired is against the law. But police across the country don’t always agree on how to determine if someone is too high to drive. Blood tests don’t necessarily measure how high someone is right now, rather just measure marijuana components present in the body. Similarly, field sobriety tests and visual inspections are fallible. In other words, if you are arrested for driving under the influence of marijuana, there’s a chance the evidence against you will be flimsy at best.
The best thing to remember is that everytime you get behind the wheel after smoking marijuana or drinking, you risk arrest.
About David Matson