The Shrine

iPod gets its own breathalyzer

If I'm intoxicated enough to even need to check my blood alcohol level, I'm probably not going to remember to check the trusty iBreath. Besides, the BAC to be intoxicated really varies. Sure, the government says if you are over such and such that you are legally drunk. Its a quantitative measurement. Ms. 90Pounds only needs one shot to be stripping on the bar. At 240 lbs, I can drink six times that and not even be phased.

You don't know how BAC works, do you?

My answer before checking Wikipedia
Its the amount of alcohol per some unit of blood.

From Wikipedia
Blood alcohol content or blood alcohol concentration (abbreviated BAC) is the concentration of alcohol in a person's blood. BAC is most commonly used as a metric of intoxication for legal or medical purposes. It is usually measured in terms of mass per volume, but can also be measured in terms of mass per mass. Blood alcohol concentration is given in many different units and notations, but they are all relatively synonymous with each other numerically.

So just from that, is it safe to infer that the amount of alcohol you consume and your mass is where you BAC is derived?

The article does, however, go on to explain that you can have increased tolerance (which probably comes in to play when using me as an example).

So even though I may have a BAC of .05, someone half my size would have a BAC of .10 from consuming the same amount of alcohol. Under Kentucky State law, I would be considered sober but the smaller person would be considered intoxicated from consuming the same amount of alcohol.

Now, lets say I have a BAC of .15 but I can still pass a field sobriety test. I am still legally intoxicated according to the law.

And Kentucky's legal limit is .08.

But I don't think the breathlizers used by law enforcement are entirely accurate. I was stopped in a road block once. I was by no means intoxicated, but I had been drinking. They made me blow four times in two different devices before I was permitted to leave. I blew zeros every time until the last blow. They let me go with a .038. With what I had consumed that night, I would have thought it to be much higher.

But I do see what you are getting at Tess in my first post.

You keep seeming to infer that BAC isn't accurate because people of different mass have different levels after drinking the same alcohol... but that's the whole point. Sure, everyone has different tolerances, but BAC is still pretty accurate to depict someone's drunkeness, and I'll agree the breathalyzers aren't accurate... I mean hell think about it- you're checking someone's breath to determine the content of their blood.