A team of scientific minds from the halls of Washington State University is currently looking to employee a handful of enthusiastic consumers to smoke marijuana and get paid.
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According to a report from CBS-affiliate KREM, researchers are willing to pay people $10 per hour to simply smoke marijuana and help them find a solution to gauging cannabis impairment. Although several prototypes from various companies have surfaced over the past several years, there is still no accurate breath detection device available for marijuana intoxication.
“We’re trying to create a roadside tool for law enforcement and businesses to detect if someone is inebriated or under the influence of marijuana… This is cutting edge – there is nothing in the world like this,” Research Assistant Nathan Weller told the news source.
In order to qualify for participation in the study, volunteers need to be at least 21 years old, a resident of Pullman, Washington and willing to submit to a series of preliminary testing prior to acceptance. Once the candidate has been approved, they would be given free reign to purchase any marijuana of their choosing from a neighborhood dispensary to smoke at home until the time comes for evaluation. At that point, researchers plan to send taxi cabs to gather the participants in an effort to prevent any of them from driving under the influence.
As it stands, more than half the nation has legalized marijuana in some form or fashion, but unlike with alcohol, there is no detection method available that can differentiate between someone who has smoked marijuana in the past week or within the past two hours.
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However, Weller feels confident that his team’s work will lead to a solution.
“Law enforcement and businesses are struggling to enforce a no drug policy in legalized states. Often times, they have to wait for test results. This tool helps both government agencies and businesses get fast results to determine who is in fact under the influence,” Weller said.
In order to prevent innocent people from being tossed in jail, it is absolutely imperative that science finds an effective device for determining marijuana impairment. But that is easier said than done.
“We don’t have a consensus as to what levels of THC are consistently correlated with behavioral impairment,” Paul Armentano, deputy director for NORML, told Business Insider in 2016.
Anyone interested in getting involved in the study will need to act fast. Researchers are reportedly enrolling volunteers beginning this week, with the examination expected to last until sometime around mid-June.
