PART ONE: The claimed breakthrough:
PART ONE: PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The MGH (Massachusetts General Hospital) researchers eschewed older methods that attempt to infer functional impairment from the amount of marijuana compounds in someone’s blood or saliva in favor of a more direct approach: Peering into the brain itself with light-based imaging. While further development and validation is needed, the team behind the work is hopeful it could lead to a roadside device that would allow police to catch dangerously stoned drivers without sweeping up law-abiding cannabis consumers and medical marijuana patients who have THC in their system but are not actively impaired. “For so long, our model has been alcohol, so there’s been a lot of focus on breath and blood levels,” Dr. Jodi Gilman, who led the research, said. “Our thought was, ‘What about looking directly at the brain?’ ”
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STORY: "MGH (Massachusetts General Hospital) claims break-through in detecting marijuana," The Boston Globe (Reporter Dan Adams) reports, on February 4, 2022.
SUB-HEADING: "Study also highlights flaws of existing "drug addiction expert" system/
PHOTO CAPTION: Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital…say they have developed a novel approach for detecting cannabis impairment.
GIST: “Boston researchers say they’ve developed a new, noninvasive technique for detecting marijuana highs that can reliably tell the difference between people who are truly impaired by the drug and those who merely used it recently.
The claimed breakthrough by scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital comes amid intensified debate in the state over how to police stoned driving in the wake of cannabis legalization, with Governor Charlie Baker recently calling for a crackdown even as critics question the extent of the problem and warn that existing impairment tests are flawed.
The MGH researchers eschewed older methods that attempt to infer functional impairment from the amount of marijuana compounds in someone’s blood or saliva in favor of a more direct approach: Peering into the brain itself with light-based imaging.
While further development and validation is needed, the team behind the work is hopeful it could lead to a roadside device that would allow police to catch dangerously stoned drivers without sweeping up law-abiding cannabis consumers and medical marijuana patients who have THC in their system but are not actively impaired.
“For so long, our model has been alcohol, so there’s been a lot of focus on breath and blood levels,” Dr. Jodi Gilman, who led the research, said. “Our thought was, ‘What about looking directly at the brain?’ ”
In their study, published in January in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, the MGH researchers first measured levels of oxygenated hemoglobin in the brains of 169 sober volunteers using functional near-infrared spectroscopy, or fNIRS.
Unlike the massive, electricity-hungry MRI scanning machines employed by hospitals, fNIRS is relatively portable; it measures the photon reflections from low-power LED bulbs mounted on a skullcap and shined into the skull.
Similar technology is already widely used in smartwatches and other fitness gadgets to measure users’ heart rates and blood oxygenation.
After giving some of their volunteers THC capsules and others a placebo, the MGH team classified each person as impaired or not impaired based on self-reporting by the study subjects and the consensus of multiple clinicians who were unaware of which subjects had eaten the “real” edible and had made thorough before-and-after observations of their behavior (an impossibility on the roadside).
The researchers then conducted a second round of brain scans and found that the people classified as impaired had significantly higher levels of oxygenated hemoglobin than subjects who ate the placebo or didn’t get too high from the THC-infused edible.
“Essentially, the [impaired] brain becomes more active but less efficient at processing, so the body gives it priority and sends more oxygen,” said Dr. A. Eden Evins, who directs the MGH Center for Addiction Medicine and helped oversee the research.
Next, the scientists trained a computer algorithm to spot the differences in oxygenated hemoglobin between those who were deemed high and those who were not.
Later, analyzing only the “after” scans, the software yielded false positives in just 10 percent of subjects and correctly guessed which were impaired about 76 percent of the time, a significant improvement over existing techniques and a figure the researchers believe they can boost substantially with further refinements.
Crucially, the system rarely indicated impairment in test subjects who consumed the THC-infused edibles yet were not deemed functionally impaired.
That puts it far ahead of older methods that automatically designate anyone with a high enough level of marijuana metabolites in their system as impaired, regardless of how well they’re actually functioning.
The scan results lend further credence to a wave of recent studies indicating (as marijuana consumers have long insisted) that there is little if any connection between a given dose of THC, the level of marijuana metabolites in blood or saliva at a given time after use, and a particular level or even likelihood of impairment.
Reactions to the drug simply vary too drastically between individuals, as do methods of ingesting cannabis and the rates at which people metabolize it.
Meanwhile, heavy consumers appear to at least partially adapt, and some medical marijuana patients even show cognitive improvements following use.
Taken together, those confounding factors mean traditional blood and saliva tests are barely more accurate than a coin toss at detecting impairment, according to Dr. Thomas Arkell of the University of Sydney’s Lambert Initiative cannabis research center.
“People wanted an easy cutoff like the blood alcohol limit, but it turns out cannabis doesn’t really work that way at all,” said Arkell, who conducted a simulated driving study last year in which common limits on THC concentrations in blood failed to accurately sort out which test subjects were actually stoned. “There is a need for a new model.”
The MGH study also raises troubling questions about the validity of another existing technique for measuring pot impairment: examinations by so-called drug recognition experts, police officers who are trained to detect impairment through a series of observations and simple physical tests like those used to assess suspected drunk drivers.
The researchers had initially planned to compare their experimental results to verdicts rendered by DREs, which proponents hail as the gold standard for assessing drug impairment.
Officers across the country, including dozens in Massachusetts, have been using the system for years to evaluate suspected drugged drivers and present evidence against them in court.
But the MGH scientists quickly discarded the DRE protocol as a reference after their experiments showed it produced false positives in a staggering 34 percent of the subjects who were not deemed impaired by the clinical and self-assessments.
The DRE-trained observers even incorrectly flagged 20 percent of the volunteers who had eaten the placebo and were verifiably sober as stoned.
Baker last year proposed a bill that would significantly expand the deployment of DRE-trained officers in Massachusetts and require courts to accept their testimony as experts.
Critics have warned the proposed law, under which drivers who refuse a blood test for cannabis metabolites would lose their licenses, is subjective, prone to officer bias, and would result in the arrests of innocent marijuana consumers.
Earlier this week, a key State House committee sent the proposal to study, likely ending its hopes of passage during the current legislative session.
Evins and Gilman hope their novel, more objective approach will prove it can sidestep those limitations, though they stressed it isn’t ready to be deployed.
One critical next step will be testing the system on a larger group of volunteers, in part to ensure that other drugs or health conditions don’t produce scan results that mimic those of stoned people.
Researchers will also need to develop a slightly smaller and more rugged fNIRS device suitable for roadside use, perhaps one that sends its readings over the cellphone data network to a remote computer for analysis.
“Officers need a better tool,” Evins said. “A big part of what got us going was the potential for bias in the system that exists now. There’s a real urgency to develop a reliable and objective way to identify marijuana impairment and make our roads safer, and we’re delighted to contribute to that.”
Other researchers in the field praised MGH’s innovation as intriguing and worthy of further study, but also pointed to potential limitations.
“A lot of factors can potentially influence blood flow in that part of the brain,” Arkell said. “Without having an individual baseline, I’m not sure how effective this would be as a roadside strategy.”
Dr. Timothy Naimi, a Boston Medical Center physician and public health researcher at the Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, said MGH’s approach was promising but would need to be extensively validated in future studies that included driving simulations instead of leaning on self-assessments of impairment.
“There could be a host of legal issues about using this in practice,” he said. “The reliability would have to be really good to use as the basis of a [court] proceeding.""
The entire story can be read at:
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PART TWO: The deservedly blistering attack: Launched by MassPrivate1 - a Blog devoted to privacy, civil rights and homeland security issues.
PART TWO: PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "What has happened to so-called Drug Recognition Experts (DRE)? Have the courts finally realized that police officers using pupil dilation charts to determine which type of drugs a motorist is under is junk science? Nope, because soon, DRE police officers across the country will be using pupil dilation charts and portable fNIRS brain scanners to determine if someone is under the influence of drugs...The image of government agents stopping motorists under a pretext and forcing them to submit to a field sobriety test, breathalyzer, blood draw and roadside brain scan is something that film director Wes Craven would have turned into a horror movie in the 1980s."
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GIST: "If Mass General Hospital (MGH) has its way, law enforcement officers in the United States will soon be using portable functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) scanners on motorists.
A recent Boston Globe article describes fNIRS as a "breakthrough" in detecting marijuana impairment.
"Boston researchers say they’ve developed a new, noninvasive technique for detecting marijuana highs that can reliably tell the difference between people who are truly impaired by the drug and those who merely used it recently."
What has happened to so-called Drug Recognition Experts (DRE)? Have the courts finally realized that police officers using pupil dilation charts to determine which type of drugs a motorist is under is junk science?
Nope, because soon, DRE police officers across the country will be using pupil dilation charts and portable fNIRS brain scanners to determine if someone is under the influence of drugs.
"For so long, our model has been alcohol, so there’s been a lot of focus on breath and blood levels," Dr. Jodi Gilman, who led the research, said. "Our thought was, ‘What about looking directly at the brain?’ "
The MGH study claims that fNIRS scanners are accurate 76 percent of the time.
"The scientists trained a computer algorithm to spot the differences in oxygenated hemoglobin between those who were deemed high and those who were not. Later, analyzing only the “after” scans, the software yielded false positives in just 10 percent of subjects and correctly guessed which were impaired about 76 percent of the time, a significant improvement over existing techniques and a figure the researchers believe they can boost substantially with further refinements."
Claiming that fNIRS is 76 percent accurate and yielded just 10 percent false positives doesn't add up. Either fNIRS gets it right 76 percent of the time or it does not. But without any independent research to back up MGH's claims, the public will probably never know if those figures are close to being accurate.
If we use the history of breathalyzer source codes being hidden from researchers as a barometer, then one can safely assume that fNIRS scanner source codes will be no different.
The image of government agents stopping motorists under a pretext and forcing them to submit to a field sobriety test, breathalyzer, blood draw and roadside brain scan is something that film director Wes Craven would have turned into a horror movie in the 1980s.
Both Harvard University and Mass General Hospital are working together to turn cops into brain scanning marijuana detectors according to the Harvard Gazette.
“Our research represents a novel direction for impairment testing in the field,” says lead author Jodi Gilman, investigator in the Center for Addiction Medicine, MGH, and associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. “Our goal was to determine if cannabis impairment could be detected from activity of the brain on an individual level. This is a critical issue because a ‘breathalyzer’ type of approach will not work for detecting cannabis impairment, which makes it very difficult to objectively assess impairment from THC during a traffic stop.”
What "novel direction" will our justice system take when it authorizes 700,000 cops to scan people's brains looking for marijuana impairment.
As the Harvard Gazette points out, there are considerable advantages to turning cops into infrared brain scanning pot detectors.
"While the study did not specifically assess fNIRS in roadside assessments of impaired driving, it did cite considerable advantages for such an application. These include the feasibility of inexpensive, lightweight, battery-powered fNIRS devices that allow data to either be stored on wearable recording units or transmitted wirelessly to a laptop. Moreover, fNIRS technology could be incorporated into a headband or cap, and thus require minimal set-up time."
Read a different way; Mass General Hospital and Harvard University would profit immensely from selling portable fNIRS scanners to law enforcement
As the website Breathalyzer alcohol tester.com points out, selling portable alcohol detectors is a hugely profitable business.
"Cost per test is roughly $0.06 each time. Bill and coin operated versions are available. Maintenance is easy. The pre calibrated field replaceable sensor have eliminated the delays and complications of recalibration by allowing users to simply snap out an old sensor module and "snap in" a new one."
From ignition interlock devices installed in cars, to mandatory "in-air" alcohol detectors in new cars, to brain scanning motorists, Big Brother has effectively destroyed our Bill of Rights in the name of public safety.
When it comes to fNIRS scanners and policing in America, one cannot help but think of the image from the 1980's movie "Scanners" and the poster's iconic words: "There are 4 billion people on earth. 237 are Scanners. They have the most terrifying powers ever created... and they are winning."
Giving hundreds of thousands of cops terrifying new powers to scan 331 million people's brains is best left to Hollywood because if portable fNIRS scanners become a reality, then driving in America will become a real-life horror movie."
https://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2022/02/us-cops-to-become-brain-scanning.html
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;