Delays in DUI blood testing: Impact on cannabis DUI assessments

Objective: This study examined the time from law enforcement dispatch to the first blood draw in cases of driving under the influence (DUI) vehicular homicide and a subset of DUI vehicular assault cases in Colorado in 2012. Laboratory toxicology results were also examined to understand the implications of delays in blood draws in cases of driving while under the influence of marijuana's delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

Methods: Colorado court records were reviewed and information regarding charges, presence of alcohol and/or drugs, time of law enforcement contact and blood draw, crash location, and other contextual factors were identified. The distributions of first blood draw times were studied by charge and by responding law enforcement agency. Toxicology data from a different cohort of DUI traffic arrests in Colorado and Washington were examined to determine the proportion of blood tests for THC that were above specified legal limits in those states.

Results: The average time from law enforcement dispatch to blood draw in cases of vehicular homicide and vehicular assault was 2.32 h (SD ± 1.31 h), with a range of 0.83 to 8.0 h and a median of 2.0 h. Data from DUI traffic arrests found that between 42 and 70% of all cannabinoid-positive traffic arrests tested below 5 ng/ml THC in blood, which is the legal limit in Colorado and Washington.

Conclusion: Given the current delays to blood testing in cases of arrests for vehicular homicide and vehicular assault in Colorado, many blood tests are unlikely to confirm that drivers who are impaired from smoking marijuana have THC levels above established legal limits.     

A Multiple Lines of Evidence Framework to Evaluate Intrinsic Biodegradation of 1,4‐Dioxane

Development of a multiple lines of evidence (MLOE) framework to evaluate the intrinsic biodegradation potential of 1,4‐dioxane is vital to implementing management strategies at groundwater sites impacted by 1,4‐dioxane. A comprehensive MLOE approach was formed to provide significant evidence of natural degradation of 1,4‐dioxane comingled with tetrahydrofuran (THF) within a large, diffuse plume. State‐of‐the art molecular biological analyses and compound‐specific isotope analysis (CSIA) were employed to support more traditional approaches for data analysis (concentration trend analyses, spatial distribution, temporal changes, geochemical biodegradation attenuation indicators, plume mass estimates, and fate and transport modeling). The molecular analyses demonstrated that microorganisms capable of both metabolic and cometabolic degradation of 1,4‐dioxane were present throughout the groundwater plume, whereas the CSIA data provided supporting evidence of biodegradation. 1,4‐Dioxane biomarkers were present and abundant throughout the 1,4‐dioxane plume, and our biomarkers tracked the plume with reasonable accuracy. Evidence also suggests that THF‐driven cometabolic biodegradation as well as catabolic 1,4‐dioxane biodegradation were active at this site. These data supplemented the traditional lines of evidence approaches, which demonstrated that 1,4‐dioxane attenuation was occurring across the groundwater plume and that nondestructive physical processes alone did not account for the observed 1,4‐dioxane attenuation. This MLOE framework combining new and traditional analyses demonstrates that this site has a significant capacity for intrinsic biodegradation of 1,4‐dioxane. ©2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Circular economy for durable products and materials: the recycling of plastic building products in Germany—status quo,potentials and recommendations

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management - The construction sector is the second largest area for the application for plastics. Due to the long life times of construction products, the...     

Preliminary field study of hepatic porphyrin profiles of Astyanax fasciatus (Teleostei, Characiformes) to define anthropogenic pollution

The implementation of eco-toxicological assessment in South America is presently limited due to significant scientific information gaps concerning native species and their potential use as biomarkers. Recently, a common southern hemisphere fish species, Astyanax fasciatus, has been pointed out as a potential bio-indicator to anthropogenic pollution. This is a small, abundant, Neotropical characid, which is widely distributed from Central America south, to the Rio de la Plata Basin of western Uruguay. Our study found a statistically significant increase of coproporphyrin, uroporphyrin and protoporphyrin concentrations in hepatic tissues of A. fasciatus collected from a stream segment with high anthropogenic disturbance (due mainly to agricultural derivatives and motor vehicle transportation activities). Although the area studied showed differences in up and downstream limno-chemical parameters, these differences were not related to the increase of hepatic porphyrin concentrations. Based on the results of our study, we conclude that A. fasciatus is a good bio-indicator of exposure to environmental contaminants, and we propose that this abundant fish species be considered as a sentinel organism for monitoring potential disturbances to freshwater ecosystems.