Question about Blood Alcohol Content

[AJFenix]

This thread is surreal. Absolutely amazing.

[Parlay Slow]

classic DaliDonk

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This thread is surreal. Absolutely amazing.

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Thanks for the reminder!

Voted *****

[kleinstadt1]

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I don't know what the others have said and I'm late to the show, but I'll inject this thread with what I know, which may not even be the answer.

When someone has blood drawn for the BAC test, the results come back as a number like 149.5. That translates to a BAC of .1495. I know this because I arrested a guy for a DUI related crash and had to get a search warrant for his lab results, where I then contacted the lab tech to ask him what the 149.5 meant.

And from my understanding, it was always .08%, not 8%.

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Incorrect. The 149.5 is 149.5mg/dL, and this is not interchangeable with BAC by %.

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Could you elaborate on this? Do you know what the conversion is?

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Confession: I'm being kind of a nit on this one.

The short answer is that there is no exact conversion.

Long, boring explanation: mg/dL is measured in serum, which is blood that has been spun down, removing all the cells. It is a weight (mg) per volume (dL) measurement.

BAC, or the % measurement, is the percent of alcohol by weight in a certain volume of whole blood, that is, blood with all the cells still in it.

100mL of whole blood weighs more than 100mL of serum.

Serum ethanol concentration and BAC are roughly interchangeable in the way you described, but may be off by up to 10% in a particular individual based on their red blood cell count, osmolality of serum, etc.

This makes no difference when you're tanked at 300mg/dL, obv. It may make a difference if it's a borderline driving 80mg/dL or something.

[El Diablo]

LF,

You make a good case as to why it's valid to call me elitist.

However, what Daliman quoted was simply me explaining why he's a moron, the fact that many people familiar with him from his posts and from meeting him IRL think he's dumb, and my opinion that other intelligent people would be likely to think that he is indeed something "close to dumb."

I don't think any of that is elitist. I did not dispute the douche part.

[kurosh]

Daliman... man, you really need to learn to let things go.

[Parlay Slow]

I also understand now how DaliDonk can get away with being an advantage blackjack player for years at TI. If I was the pit boss I would really never suspect someone so dumb could be beating us.

[Kneel B4 Zod]

yesterday I went to the Pats game with 3 buddies, and we started out by having mimosas. then I had about 4 PBR's before the game, 2 Otter Creek Octoberfest during the game, and 2 more PBR's after the game. then I drove home.

obviously, the question is "was it gay to have mimosas at a football tailgate"? I think it was pretty awesome, esp. since we made breakfast before proceeding to the real tailgate food.

[Dids]

The ensuing ATF thread about Dali's banning should be [censored] awesome.

stabn and tuq- please be available in 22 hours, 43 minutes and 1 second

[Chump Change]

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Any intelligent person reading this thread will think you're dumb, Dali. Sorry.

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El D et al,

There is a scenario where a person can have sound or even superb logical reasoning abilites but still believe and even assume '.08' means 8% and not .08%. This scenario would require the person has next to no knowledge of how the body works, and no amount of common sense will help in this regard. The knowledge simply need to studied and learned. People often confuse common sense with common knowledge.

Now, the circulatory system might be common knowledge but I highly doubt it. People in general have absolutely no clue how the body works, and never had the time or interest to learn. After studying nutrition myself I was shocked at how little people know and how most 'common knowledge' is outright incorrect. Sugar is 'bad' right? Calories are 'bad' cuz they make you fat, right? Et cetera, et cetera.

Long story short, I found it odd that Daliman didn't know this factoid but didn't consider it worthy of somebody dumb and lacking logical reasoning abilities. It seems almost standard that people just don't know anything about anything.

I might consider it dumb that a person has no interest in learning how his body works, or other useful information, but that's a different discussion entirely.