New Patch Nixes the Liquid Lunch (Big Brother Alert!)

Wired ^ | 02:00 AM Nov. 26, 2003 PT | Louise Knapp

[vannrox]

Drinking on the job may be a thing of the past if employers adopt a new patch that constantly monitors alcohol levels. By Louise Knapp.

When boarding a plane, dropping off the kids with the nanny or watching a 10-wheeler careening down the highway, the last thing you want to worry about is whether the pilot, nanny or driver has been imbibing something stronger than coffee.

[vannrox]

SpectRx will begin human clinical studies in the first half of 2004. If all goes well, the device could be ready for market in three years.

[livius]

I want them to develop a pot-monitoring patch. In every place that I worked in NYC, dope was a bigger problem than alcohol, partly because it mimicked natural stupidity and was therefore undetectable. People (ranging from the mailroom to the traders) used to stand in the doorway smoking dope at the beginning of the day, and go out and get stoned again at lunch.

I never figured out why employers let this go on, but I suspect that it was partly because it was hard to detect, unless you were going to hire people to stalk the streets around the building when these employees entered. But working with these people in any capacity, whether you recieved your interoffice mail from them or relied upon their financial decisions, was hell.

[ElkGroveDan]

This could be fun for the bar hopping/nightclub scene, especially if you could buy the detectors at your local electronics store....."Hey check her out, her patch is giving off a .12 content!"

[Lokibob]

Unbelievable!!!!

Talk about "the mark of the beast".

If they can monitor this, they can monitor anything. Pregnancies, for population control, Drug use, legal and illegal. Pills (attn: Limbough), food to control fat people, lifestyles, adultry, personal hygene. Anger, lie detecting, violence, firing a gun, stealing. They will be able to tell when ever you break one of the 10 commandments (including coveting your neighbors ass). Mom will be able to tell when their children really do love them.

This is really scary.

[swarthyguy]

Remember my quips about chip implants to monitor your dietary intake in real time. VoilA!

It's getting closer.

[nygoose]

I wonder if Ted Kennedy has ever been on the Senate floor while drunk?

[swarthyguy]

Relax. It'll make us safer. What do u object if you have nothing to hide anyways.

[Lokibob]

Hey, I have nothing to hide, but I want them to control the rest of you.

[Oztrich Boy]

Yeah. If starts out "We just going to give you this little monitor patch", and before you can say "assimilated", you look

[SheLion]

It's getting closer.

Yes.........it is. When the professional anti-smokers saw how it worked to control and ban tobacco use and smokers, they are now branching out. Greater control of more people!

Won't be long when everyone is like a human blob taking orders from "da leader." UGH!

That's what it will come to, if we don't start speaking up!

[TheSpottedOwl]

I wonder if Ted Kennedy has ever been on the Senate floor while drunk?

Rotf! Nawwww, not Teddy. No way, he has too much respect for his country to do something like that! /sarcasm

[Ole Okie]

I wonder if Ted Kennedy has ever been on the Senate floor while drunk?

Naah.

You think?

Naah, couldn't be.

Submarine Commander Edward Milhouse Kennedy, drunK?

Naah.

Food for thought, though.

Mary Jo might have profited from one of these patches on the good Sub Commander Kennedy.

[johnb838]

It would never be required in Congress.

[NYCVirago]

In every place that I worked in NYC, dope was a bigger problem than alcohol, partly because it mimicked natural stupidity and was therefore undetectable.

Ain't that the truth!

[vannrox]

HOWARD DEAN SUPPORTER

[Madame Dufarge]

Remember my quips about chip implants to monitor your dietary intake in real time. VoilA!

It's getting closer.

Well, as far as I can tell, this is pretty much how it will go.

The small percentage of people left with any cojones will tell the employer to stick it.

We won't get hired.

We'll become members of the lower socio-economic group because we can't get jobs for refusing to acquiesce to this crap.

Then we'll be thrown to bottom of the PC pecking order, be made objects of derision, and used as examples of how only those in the lower socio-economic blah, blah, blah refuse to submit to this.

Plus, they smoke.

[honeygrl]

ping.

[honeygrl]

"Relax. It'll make us safer. What do u object if you have nothing to hide anyways."

Was your next line going to be "It's all for the children"? I can assure you that even though I don't drink, I will not ever work for an employer that requires something invasive like this. If they don't think they can trust me, they shouldn't hire me. And if they are going to use these for government employees, they better start at the top and work their way down. (that means congress and anyone working in the white house first!) I think this has the potential to be a horrible invasion of privacy because they'll find other things to detect in the same way. And who is going to stop an employer from monitoring even the alcohol off the job too when it's none of their business? This is too invasive to even think about implementing widely. They have breathalyser tests already if they want to monitor pilots before a flight and it's noninvasive. I hope this thing fails miserably. And the only reason they threw in the "nanny" situation was to imply "it's for the children!"

[bwteim]

If the monitor picks up a whiff of alcoh

There goes the aftershave market. I'm selling my Old Spice stock now...

[bwteim]

Make that if the monitor picks up a whiff of alcohOL

Too much Old Spice near my keyboard.