Effects of Homoeopathic Mother Tinctures on Breath Alcohol Testing

In some countries it is illegal to drive with any detectable amount of
alcohol in blood; in others the legal limit is 0.5 g/L or lower. Recently, some defendants
charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, have claimed that positive breath
alcohol test results were due to the ingestion of homoeopathic mother tinctures.
These preparations are obtained by maceration, digestion, infusion or decoction of
herbal material in hydroalcoholic solvent. A series of tests were conducted to evaluate
the alcoholic content of three homoeopathic mother tinctures and their ability to
produce inaccurate breath-alcohol results. Nine of 30 subjects gave positive results
(0.11–0.82 g/L) when tests were taken within 1 min after drinking mother tincture. All
tests taken at least 15 min after the mother tincture consumption, resulted in alcoholfree
readings. An observation period of 15-20 min prior to breath alcohol testing
eliminates the possibility of false positive results