In a clip on Tiktok that has gone viral, people drink Christmas must and blow into a breathalyzer – and it shows positive. Jenny Strömstedt and Per Skoglund also test in Nyhetsmorgon – and there, too, the breathalyzer gives results.
Tomas Jonsson, CEO of the test lab at the Motor Drivers’ Sobriety Association, explains:
— There is alcohol in everything that has sugar in it and where there is some form of fermentation. It can be in everything from bananas, oranges to yogurt – and even Christmas must. But it is so very little that it becomes what we call oral alcohol, a contamination. In order for it to affect the ability to drive, the alcohol must enter the blood. What happens in this case is that you get a contamination and the mouth alcohol disappears after just a few minutes.
Where is the limit for drunk driving?
— 0.10 milligrams per liter of exhaled air or 0.2 per mille in the blood. The breathalyzer you used on air measures blood alcohol levels, so it’s under the drink driving limit. It is therefore impossible to get drunk on Christmas must.
And if you blow positively in a police check?
— If you have to go in to take a proof test, you will always be freed. That test detects whether it is mouth alcohol or not.
And if you have an alcohol lock in the car?
— This applies to almost 350,000 vehicles in Sweden today and almost 700,000 breathalyzer tests are carried out per day. There it can be a problem that the vehicle does not start if you have just drunk Christmas must. But what you can do then is wait a minute or so, and the vehicle will start. By then the mouth alcohol has had time to disappear. It is then important that companies that have an alcohol lock have a policy on how to handle contamination so that you are not falsely accused of having been drunk.