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Photo by Draeger.com

Two lawyers from a Vancouver-based law firm say they are ready to challenge the usage of a newly approved saliva-screening device for marijuana in court as soon as it hits the road.

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On Monday, federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould approved the Dräger DrugTest 5000, a device that will soon be available to police forces across the country to combat drug-impaired driving, as the government prepares for legalization in October.

But its design may render it “ineffective” for enforcement in Canada, according to Kyla Lee, a lawyer with Acumen Law.

“The device is designed to operate in temperatures from four degrees to 40 degrees Celsius,” she said. “Outside of that, it would either give you a false positive or false negative, and either one is just as concerning.

“We are going to be constitutionally challenging this provision of the legislation as soon as we get one of these cases,” Lee added.

To conduct a test through this device, a subject’s oral cavity must be swabbed for one to four minutes to collect saliva. The sample is then inserted into an analyzing device that will then send the results to a mobile printer.

Each unit would cost an estimated US $6,000, with disposable cartridges at $20 per piece.