E-health E-cigarettes Smoking get a DWI/DUI?

[pauljoseph]

Hi Everyone: I posted this thread here http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...-alcohol-e-health-e-cigarettes-get-dui-5.html and someone said to post in this section as well. There's a fair bit of discussion so I wont go into lengthy re-explanations.

Basically: my buddy and I: he's 6'1' 175lbs - had between 5-6 beers from 7pm-12pm stopped for two hours then went to get pizza. my buddy got pulled over and blew over the limiti. 1.1 (over 1.0 for sure). He had been smoking e-health e-cigarettes/ one apple flavoured and the other high nicotine doseage cartridges (10 per pack). He had smoked 2 packs or 20 cartridges that day and was smoking it when he got out of the car and the cops approached us at the pizza place we were going to.

I have checked the online blood alcohol content amounts and in theory he should have blown between a 0,05-0,075 - definitely not above 1.0.

If you read the thread above - there's a lot of questions about whehter or not propylene glycol or the other main component in e-cigarettes would blow you over the limit as they are both alcohol based (please forgive my spelling or terms here, trying to figure it out) which is what breathalyzers look for : If I am right, this is not about ethanol in the liquids, but the PG/VG. Though not intoxicating, they are alcohols as far a test equipment looking for O-H bonds is concerned (or a chemist).

Please any help or knowledge on thsi would be appreciated. as i said before. i understand the normal horrible reaction to DWI but I really dont see how he could have been SO far over the limit. it just does not make sense and there's no other reason we can come up with.

Thank you so much

 

[WomanOfHeart]

Paul,

As others have already stated in the other thread, there is no way that e-cigs could have contributed to your friends DUI. There is no alcohol in either Propylene Glycol or Vegetable Glycerin. There are some juice vendors who will use Ethyl Alcohol in their juices, but the amount is so minute that there's no way it would've contributed to your friends alcohol content. If there were enough alcohol in e-liquid, then a great many of us would be getting DUI's simply because we'd been vaping.

Both Vegetable Glycerin and Propylene Glycol are used in a great number of other applications including food, toothpaste and medicine.

I'm sorry that your friend got a DUI and I understand that you want to defend him, but the e-cig is not to blame here.

 

[rolygate]

It may be possible that one or more ingredients in most e-liquids, or an ingredient in some e-liquids, can cause a portable mechanical alcohol testing device to show a false positive. For example it has been suggested that PG can have the same effect on the chemical detectors in these portable machines as ethanol (the alcohol being tested for), as the glycols may show similarities to the alcohols for this purpose. The same might be possible for one or two other ingredients in some formulations.

However, as far as I am aware you cannot be convicted of DUI unless the subsequent blood test is also positive and over the limit (unless you refuse the blood test). It does not seem to be the case that alcohol or PG or PG metabolytes in the blood can be confused, as the testing regimen is different.

So as far as actually being convicted is concerned - and this has not been mentioned as far as I can see - you won't be.

What we do need, though, is for more vapers in this situation to insist on a blood test, and to have the blood split into two samples, so that any subsequent positive from the police lab can be checked at an independent lab. If it turns out that the portable machines show positive but the blood tests are negative, then we could move ahead on this.