When a person drinks enough alcohol (beyond a rather low threshold), his alcohol

Question

When a person drinks enough alcohol (beyond a rather low threshold), his alcohol dehydrogenase is essentially saturated - that is, the alcohol can only be cleared at a fixed, flat rate, no matter how much more alcohol enters the system. This phenomenon is due to the low of alcohol dehydrogenase for ethanol. You are serving on a jury in a drunk driving case. The defendant claims his blood alcohol level was never over the legal limit of 0.08%. While no assay for alcohol was performed immediately after his arrest, his blood alcohol 4 hours after arrest was 0.075%; 5 hours after arrest, 0.065%; 6 hours after arrest, 0.055%. Do you believe his claim of innocence? How would you explain your reasoning to the other jurors?

Explanation / Answer

Clearly not,

as you can see...

form t = 4 to t = 5, there is adrop in 0.010% , in only one hour!

for t = 4 to t = 6 you can see the drop in 0.01%

therefore, we can assume 0.01% drop per hour

we had 4 hours!

if the trend is similar

then

4 hours = 0.04

so

0.075 + 0.04 = 0.115

which is totally drunk over 0.08% legal limt

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