Police based in the Wealden District of East Sussex are hoping to control the problem of underage drinking with a new alcohol-detecting device.
The Alcoblow® is designed to be waved in the faces of young people in the street to see if they have been drinking.
The Alcoblow®, which costs about £300 each, was piloted by police in the Wealden district for three months and proved such a success that D M Wood Medical has just supplied four more to the Safer Wealden Partnership.
Sergeant Howard Neville, who is based in Hailsham, said: “It’s proved particularly helpful in one area and that’s underage drinking."
“We have used it with teenagers perceived to be drinking in the streets and we have also used it with young people at youth events or under-age club nights, to reassure parents.”
The Alcoblow® is a fully portable, hand-held instrument originally designed for use by the police at roadblocks for rapid pre-screening of drivers for the presence of alcohol on the breath. The unit uses a non contact breath sampling system, will show a reading within 3 seconds of sampling, is ready for use again only 2 seconds after reading a zero sample, and will flag breath alcohol at any level above 0.02mg/L BrAC. Its speed and ease of use has also made it popular in safety critical industries such as mining, quarrying and other heavy industries.