Irvine Firm Will Sell Consumer Device to Test Breath for Alcohol

A small Irvine company announced plans Thursday to begin distributing a do-it-yourself breath test for alcohol through thousands of retail stores.

H. Thad Morris, the chief executive of Irvine-based Worldwide Medical Corp., said his own past arrests for drunk driving helped motivate him to add the product to his firm’s line of substance-abuse tests.

“If our product just keeps one person from going through what I went through, that would mean a lot to me,” said the 51-year-old executive, who stayed up late Wednesday crafting the portions of the company’s news statement that described one of his arrests.

“They say confession is good for the soul,” he added, saying he doesn’t drink and drive anymore.

Worldwide Medical has ambitions of selling directly to consumers a breath tester previously marketed mostly to substance-abuse, parole, probation and employers’ drug-testing programs.

Morris said the company is negotiating with several retail chains, including Circle K minimarts.

Major organizations with expertise on the problems of drunk driving hesitated to comment Thursday on the product. Worldwide Medical’s news release cited statistics compiled by Mothers Against Drunk Driving on deaths caused by drunk drivers.

However, MADD doesn’t endorse products. Its position is: “If you’re going to drink, you shouldn’t drive.”

Jose Vasquez, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol, described as “beneficial” any instrument that may give someone an idea of their blood-alcohol level. He cautioned, however, that he doesn’t know how reliable Worldwide’s test is.

Worldwide Medical--a distributor for a Texas company that holds the product’s patent--will sell a package of three tests under its own private label, “First Check Breath Alcohol Tester,” at a suggested retail price of less than $10.

The test consists of a three-inch plastic tube with a glass ampul inside that holds yellow crystals. To use the device, Morris said a person simply crushes the ampul and blows through the tube for 12 seconds.

The company said that if the person’s breath alcohol level reaches 0.08% or higher, the crystals turn blue-green. In California and many other states, it’s a misdemeanor for an adult with a blood alcohol level of .08% to drive.

Morris said he’s been arrested twice for drunk driving--once in Irvine about 10 years ago, and another time in Newport Beach, about five years ago.

The first time, he said, he was stopped on the San Diego Freeway after an officer observed him swerving in his lane. Several years later, he swerved as he approached a stop sign in Newport Beach.

Both times he was jailed for several hours and fined about $1,000, he recalls. The second time, he lost his license for a year, attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and was assigned to do community service at the county jail.

“Thank God I wasn’t hurt and didn’t hurt anyone,” Morris said.