By Dipo Olowookere
Developer of the Cannabix Marijuana Breathalyzer for law enforcement and the workplace, Cannabix Technologies Inc, has provided a development update on its FAIMS Beta 2.0 (field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry) based marijuana breathalyzer for the detection of 9-tetrahydrocannabinol in human breath.
It said development in Gainesville, Florida and Vancouver, BC is progressing well and the Company expects to begin pre-trial live subject testing during the month of March.
Since introducing the Beta 2.0 version of the Cannabix Marijuana Breathalyzer in late 2016, Company scientists have been engaged in developmental testing, method development, and continuously improving the design of the device.
At the same time, experiments have been done with THC to characterize the individual parts of the instrument and improve the efficiency of human breath collection and sampling.
The Cannabix Marijuana Breathalyzer consists of proprietary components including a generator enabled by the latest chip technology to provide extremely fast high-voltage square wave transitions that significantly improve chemical separations, and a novel plasma ionization source that provides efficient ionization with a relatively small footprint. The Company anticipates completing developmental testing of the Beta 2.0 device within the next month while preparing for preliminary human subject testing.
Various technical leaps have been made with several components over the last 3 months. In particular, the dielectric barrier discharge ionization source (“DBD”) which allows efficient ionization with relatively low voltages, has been significantly optimized in every aspect of the source (sizes, geometries, and materials) leading to significantly smaller instrument footprint. In addition, the high-voltage square wave generator (“HVSW”) which causes ions to oscillate rapidly at a high frequency between the FAIMS electrodes, to create separation from each other, has been drastically improved.
The company is working with its Vancouver based engineering firm to ruggedize and refine its breath collection component (i.e. the collection tube where users breathe into the breathalyzer). In particular, engineers are testing a very exciting proprietary flow-through heat exchanger technology that stabilizes breath temperature in extreme cold as well as humid temperature settings.
In December, a special Task Force set up by the Government of Canada to review the future regulation of recreational cannabis in Canada, issued a report, where the among other things, emphasised the issue of marijuana impaired driving as a critical issue and presented a host of specific recommendations to provincial Ministers across Canada, including:
Supporting the development of an appropriate roadside drug screening device for detecting THC levels, and invest in these tools;
Determining whether to establish a per se limit as part of a comprehensive approach to cannabis-impaired driving and re-examine per se limits should a reliable correlation between THC levels and impairment be established;
Investing in baseline data collection and ongoing surveillance and evaluation in collaboration with provinces and territories.
The Government of Canada is expected to table marijuana legalization legislation in the spring. The Company will use key metrics and guidance from Drugs and Driving Committee (DDC), which is an advisory body to the Canadian Department of Justice on issues relating to drug-impaired driving and has been given a mandate to develop reports regarding drugs that are proposed for zero-tolerance and per se legislation, including cannabis.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Aduragbemi Omiyale