Florida Paid 15 State Employees to Get Hammered in an Attempt to Test Breathalyzers

Of course this happened in Florida:  The state that comes up with terrible ideas and actually follows through on them.

According to the Sarasota Herald Tribune last October, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement . . . which is like their version of the FBI . . . paid 15 employees to get hammered at work.

They were worried they were going to lose funding to buy a type of breathalyzer called the Intoxilyzer 8000 . . . it had a reputation of being wildly inaccurate and having the results thrown out in court.

But rather than pay experts to do actual scientific testing to prove whether or not they work, they decided to spend $8,000 to run their own not-at-all-scientific test.

They had 15 employees come in, on the clock, and drink all the Jim Beam whiskey they could handle.  Then they had them blow into the Intoxilyzers.  They also took blood, so they could compare the blood-alcohol readings from both methods.

In December, a representative went in front of a panel of state judges to present the findings of the study.  They instantly saw the flaw . . . it was just one amateur study. 

And they saw another flaw too . . . the results of the blood work still hadn't come back, so it wasn't even clear whether the study proved the Intoxilyzers were worthwhile or not.

They should be returning a verdict soon on whether the department will keep getting the funding for Intoxilyzers . . . but this study may've only hurt the cause.