[valo403]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

As a pharmacist this brings to mind some important things we learn early.

a) Blood levels only tell half the story. 80mg/ml may be completely different for different people. You cannot acurately measure level of impairment, so blood levels are all we can go on. We all remember that chick that has one drink and is crying and taking off her shirt, right? Her level may be at 50mg/ml. This leads me to believe 0.05 is probably about right.

b) Alcohol is eliminated in first order kinetics. I don't believe there are many drugs that are first order. What this means is that the more you have the longer it takes to be eliminated. Think of it this way. Your body eliminates about 10-20mg/ml/hr. That means that every hour x amount is eliminated. Almost every other drug goes by second order kinetics (think half-lives) as this means the higher the level in the body, the faster it is eliminated; leaving the amount of time the drug is in the body is constant regardless of dose. This bring up a difficult point of determining when exactly someone is OK to begin driving again. Many officers will tell you they have stopped people in the mornings with >80mg/ml. How do we properly account for this? Also, if we have zero tolerance, when will people be at zero. The rate can vary widely depending on many factors including medications, temperature, genetics (huge), gender, etc.

Can you send me her number?