Does Putting Pennies In My Mouth Help Me If I'm Being Pulled Over For DUI?
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By
Howard and Arca Attorneys at Law
Does stuffing pennies in my mouth help reduce the amount of alcohol that shows up on a test? In college I believe and I had heard the rumor that if you’re pulled over after being drinking, you need to immediately stuff pennies into your mouth to lessen the alcohol reading that will come out in the test. Needless to say the pennies do not work and will only make you look more guilty when the officer finds the pennies in your mouth. He will document that in his report and use that as evidence against you in the case of drunk driving. What can help you though is rinsing your mouth out before you leave a bar. Don’t rinse your mouth out with alcohol but rinse it out with water. Mouth alcohol will contaminate a breath test and a can result from alcohol in the mouth that is protected from the dissipation process because it is trapped within a recess in the mouth for example a hole in a tooth covered by cotton, to take medication on cotton, or in a denture adhesive. Other substances in the mouth such as blood or tobacco can affect the test results if they get past the spit trap and into the sample cylinder. Cough drops containing menthyl can produce elevated effects. In one case a subject had a halls mennthyl eucalyptus cough drops in her mouth prior to arrest. The officer stated that she put nothing in her mouth after the arrest. The defendant was found not guilty when it was demonstrated with testimony by an expert witness that the cough drops in her mouth at the time of arrest would still have been present at the time of the test and would produce an erroneously elevated test results. Do not put pennies in your mouth at the time you are stopped for DUI suspicion. Before you leave the bar rinse out your mouth with water and save yourself a DUI! If you are unfortunately arrested for DUI make sure you contact a Paulding county DUI lawyertoday.
