When is a bag of Tostitos more than just a bag of Tostitos? When it's an alcohol detector, too.

Plano-based Frito-Lay Inc., whose well-regarded run of Super Bowl ads for its Doritos brand ended last year, is launching limited-edition Tostitos bags in connection with the Feb. 5 game that can tell if you've been drinking, AdWeek reported.

The sleek, black "Party Safe" bags are outfitted with sensors linked to a microcontroller set to sniff out booze on your breath. Unlike a Breathalyzer, which tells you whether you've had too much, the bags just remind you to be careful if you've indulged at all.

"We're proud to introduce to the world the first bag of chips that gets you home safe," Roger Baran, a Goodby Silverstein & Partners creative director, told AdWeek. "For a football fan, there is a lot of emotion involved with a game. It's easy to drink more than you planned."

The company is making only 1,000 special Tostitos bags and giving them to identified fans of the brand. (AdWeek)

According to Yahoo! Finance, the top of the dark bag lights up blue, "like an Amazon Echo," when turned on. Blowing into the sensor triggers the light to turn either green or red depending on the result; a red result also displays an Uber code redeemable for a ride home during or after the game.

You won't find the bags at local retailers, though. According to Yahoo!, Tostitos is only distributing 1,000 of them, "to pre-identified fans."

But through a partnership with Uber and Mothers Against Drunk Driving, standard retail bags of Tostitos Scoops sold prior to the Super Bowl will feature a code for $10 off an Uber ride for the first 25,000 users when the game ends.

"Our goal is to remove 25,000 cars from the roads that Sunday evening," Jennifer Saenz, Frito-Lay's chief marketing officer, told the web site.

The campaign also involves Tennessee Titans tight end Delanie Walker, a MADD volunteer who played in the 2013 Super Bowl but lost his aunt and uncle to a drunken driver just hours afterward. "Drunk driving is 100 percent preventable," AdWeek reported Walker as saying.

In Kansas City, a news station's misleading tweet about the campaign, unfortunately, gave the impression that the bags do tell users whether they've had too much. That led a number of Twitter users to jokingly dismiss the effort.

"If you have to blow into a Tostitos bag to know if you're intoxicated, for the love of all that is holy, DO NOT DRIVE," the Lawrence, Kan., Police Department tweeted Thursday, prompting a lengthy exchange of ribbing from other users. (Because, you know, you can't tweet just one.)

Misunderstanding aside, the campaign not only allows Frito-Lay to participate in a positive cause but to avoid the expense of a Super Bowl ad, which in spite of the NFL's suffering TV ratings runs a record $5 million this year for a 30-second spot.

Tostitos: Friend, alcohol-detection device, advertising innovator. All that and a bag of chips.