Sobriety Tests

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 81, 29 December 1934, Page 13

Sobriety Tests

Sir.—With reference to the report that the police tests for sobriety in Britain are being criticised and likely to cease, it is of interest that recent scientific research has resulted in discoveries that make this type of test unnecessary. For instance, science has demonstrated that if there is one drop of alchohol to 100 drops of blood in a person (that is 0.1 per cent, of alcohol in the blood), then that person is definitely ‘under the influence’ of alcohol. Real drunkenness is reached when 0.3 per cent, of alcohol is in the blood, and 0.5 per cent, will produce such stupor that the individual is close to death from acute alcohol poisoning. In these days of speed on the roads necessitating maximum mental alertness, the matter of bring ‘under the influence’ of alcohol is a very serious one, since such a condition can exist without any visual signs. By taking one drop of a person’s blood the percentage of alcohol —or the absence of it—can be determined with exactitude. If the percentage is found to be 0.1 or over, then that person can be definitely classed as ‘under the influence.’ That is to say, although the person himself and all concerned would sincerely declare that he was not ‘under the influence’ —the scientist proves that there is sufficient alcohol in the blood to affect the operation of the brain, mental alertness, poise, balance and so on, and the co-or-dination of brain and muscle, This method is in use in Germany, and has been suggested in Britain, It has been denounced by one judge as an interference with ‘personal liberty.’ But it cuts two ways. We are told shock will produce results similar to intoxication and innocent persons are liable to wrongful conviction. The blood test makes this impossible. The accused might be flushed, thick in speech and betray other symptoms associated with intoxication, but if the blood test is negative, revealing no alcohol, that person could not be charged with being ‘under the influence.’ Tho new method will doubtless be strenuously objected to by some, but will win its way and should eventually become .universal. Of course, anyone would be at liberty to refuse to permit a drop of blood to be taken, but such a refusal in the face of say a motor accident or fatality, would be tantamount to a a confession of knowledge that alcohol had been taken.—l am, etc. J. WALTON MURRAY. Wellington, December 28.