National Patent Breath Testing Course (Mansfield, OH August 12-15)
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Mansfield, OH is home to National Patent factory, the sole manufacturer of the DataMaster- a breath testing device used in over 14 states and a handful of countries. The factory is located a ½ mile from the historic Ohio State Reformatory which you may have seen in Air Force One and Shawshank Redemption.
National Patent opened its doors to myself and 7 lawyers from all over the country to educate us on the inner workings of their machine. The DataMaster is a competitor to the Draeger Alcotest 1170 which is the machine presently used in MA (as well as AL, NJ and CA). National Patent is presently the sole company willing to open its doors to the public (let alone the vicious defense attorneys!) Understandably standing behind their product it was plain to see the shortcomings of competitor machines. By day we learned the science of fuel cell and infrared technology, by night we put the machines to the test! Alfred Staubus, Pharm.D., PhD., was nice enough to open up his “lab” (by lab I mean a fully stocked bar and 7 various types of breath testing devices) to us. Testing these machines only furthered my previously existing belief that they are far from infallible! After eating pizza (prior to drinking any alcohol) I registered a .02. Mouthwash alone registered the same results. Having one shot of alcohol caused a machine to yield a high result. The point to take from this is that the machines most certainly do NOT recognize mouth alcohol all the time and do not differentiate ethanol from other types of alcohol (found in mouth wash or pizza). |
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