Smartphones might soon know if you have consumed marijuana

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New technology could allow smartphones to serve as cannabis breathalyzers

Smartphones that include a GPS system can know your location in real-time without any inconvenience. This has brought many advantages to people who want to move from one place to another when they really have no idea where they are, especially when visiting other countries. Similar to this feature, data from your smartphone’s sensors may soon be able to detect when someone is using marijuana. This innovation could prove to be a useful tool for all those people looking to always have an adequate level of marijuana intoxication.

According to a new study unveiled by a team at Rutgers University, it was shown how new smartphones could carry GPS-like sensors. Instead of being used to track your location, though, they are used to detect and determine marijuana intoxication in young adults. In an effort to find out how feasible it would be to use these sensors to identify episodes of cannabis intoxication, the researchers used a combination of time functions and sensor data and are said to have an accuracy rate of close to 90%.

Drug and Alcohol Dependence is the journal in which the study was published, which, according to the research team, analyzed data collected from young adults who consumed cannabis at least twice a week. Using advanced machine learning technology and a combination of information gathered from new smartphone sensors, they analyzed telephone surveys and other reports to determine the importance of time of day and day of the week in detecting consumption. Through this study, the researchers were able to determine which specific phone sensors are best suited to detect self-reported cannabis intoxication.