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AMG, I agree, I think one device collects and stores, the other analyzes. I have an idea that this will work something like the sample gets collected at roadside and run through the field analyzer for a positive/negative result. If the result is positive, the sample is preserved and the suspect is brought in for booking under suspicion of driving under influence. On arrival at the station the SAME SAMPLE that was collected by the road is run through a mass spec and a number value is determined. Prosecution/guilt will hinge on a number being met or exceeded, just like alcohol. Breath sample collection and preservation at the time of the initial stop is critical, because the THC levels decay so rapidly in the human body.
That's how I see it playing out. Blow a negative - you're free to go. Blow a positive result and you're taking a ride for further review. Advantages include allowing a lower tech device to be fielded in the police car (binary), and collection / preservation of a breath sample at the point of detention that can be analyzed at a later time. Now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder if there will be a mail-in type sample analysis available so local law enforcement won't have to buy a mass spec machine.
Not sure what you mean by Google it- I have read the press release where they talk about misty and breath colletion, it says nothing about a portable breathalyzer. Only a collection device. I have my interpretation, based on what it says. You may be seeing it a different way. No problem there.
My interpretation is based on what they said, and in some cases what they didn't say. They described a breath collection device that stores samples for later verification on other equipment. I interpret that just as it was stated - it's a collection/storage device. The press release did not say anything about Misty West developing or packaging a breathalyzer, just a collection device. I guess we will need to see the end product to understand how the pieces fit together and operate. I am 54, I worry that I'll be in a nursing home by then.
That indeed is fact - the device that was promised by "end of year" was actually a breath collection device, not the breathalyzer itself. Questions in my mind include how the collection device interfaces with the breathalyzer, since they went out of their way to develop the spit separation mouthpiece a few years ago. Being a person of what I consider to be average intelligence, I assumed (there I go again) at the time that the special whiz-bang spit separation mouthpiece would fit right onto the breathalyzer, and we'd be over the challenges of DNA/spit collection and be on our way.
This group moves at a speed that is only slightly faster than the speed at which nuclear power plants recieve their permits to build, fuel and operate. And I am probably off on that.
Perhaps he does anticipate a large jump in share price and does not want to be accused of insider trading. I do not know what his duties are, but if he is involved in the hands-on development he may be anticipating award of some options when a milestone is reached, making the shares he had more able to be sold off without hurting himself too badly.
One possibility is that someone doing due diligence looked in the programming for the evening news and noted Dr. Huestis was scheduled to be involved. They googled her, found the connection to Cannabix Technologies, and connected the dots that she must be going on to discuss a new breathalyzer. Using this information the person in question may have gone and bought a block of shares, driving the price up.
I try to avoid reading tea leaves with this stuff. There is information out there, but I think the majority of analysis done on the data is pure conjecture and wishful thinking. Rav makes a vague statement and it's interpreted as they plan to be marketing a completed device by week's end.
Time will tell. The Cannabix crew has gone very close to the vest with their information / press releases in the past year and a half or so. We used to get one almost monthly. Add in the occasional snippets from hound or others, and we're in a vacuum inside of a blender.
I got out this morning. I’ll take the tax loss for the year and wait till it is at .25 and get back in.
Blah Blah Blah. We know there is a huge demand and a significant market size for a working device. We've know this for years. Time to produce a working device guys. Enough blathering on about how much people want to buy it. Without anything to sell you got nothing.
If Yost and co have ironed out manufacturability of the guts and Misty creates the housing and display parts that are also easily manufactured, they will need to source guts manufacturers (plural, split it up) and casing manufacturers, and then find an operation that can do final assembly, testing and calibration, and handle shipping and receiving. They also will need to figure out how to handle warranty repairs and other details that go along with mass market electronic devices. And they will need a bank account that accepts large deposits on a daily basis.
Agreed. Yost and friends created the guts, Misty packages it for mass production and distribution. Pretty typical of development type projects.
Fear and greed. Those are the real aspects that drive stock prices. I can find 15 ways to calculate how to value a stock or a company, but when it’s over, it comes down to fear and greed.
Looks like power hour is after hours here lately....
it will settle out, over 3 million shares traded in 9 minutes. Nice volume, let them out so this pony can run.
I ran numbers based on market cap and production capacity and ignoring float, my Fred Flintstone analysis came out that Aurora should rocket to around $200 and then fall back to the $65 range. In the end, our analysis and attempts to predict the future stock price are just about exercises in futility, as the two things that REALLY drive price are simple. Fear and Greed.
CBD oil is keeping a friend of mine alive. He has a tumor on his spinal cord in his neck, inoperable. Spinal cord is submerged in spinal fluid, not blood, so blood-borne chemotherapy did nothing but make him sick. The tumor lauged at radiation treatment and got bigger. CBD oil has reduced its size and stopped growth for several years now. When he stops taking it (pill form) he said after about 36 hours it is like being in a suit of armor that is plugged into the wall. He takes it and the symptoms subside. Other friends with diabetes oriented glaucoma use it to manage symtpoms as well.
Market cap and processing capacity. I’m new to investing, new to Aurora. I will put that out there first. I do understand that two things drive share price during times of change and fluctuation – fear and greed. During “steady state” times, the price can be calculated, a few outlying factors included, and the PPS can be determined. But my observations on Aurora are pretty interesting. First I look at our friends at Tilray. For ease of comparison I will round the Tilray price to $100/share, and Aurora to $9 a share. Tilray has a market cap of about $7.6B. Aurora has a market cap of around $8.5B. Published capacity to produce, process and distribute put Tilray at about 76,000 kilograms per year. Aurora has an annual capacity of about 570,000 kilograms per year. If Tilray’s market cap reflects the value deemed appropriate for producing 76,000 kilos a year, then the market cap of Aurora should be correspondingly higher. Which would put Aurora’s market cap around $57.3B and the share price around $60, as a straight across comparison to the Tilray numbers after they have gone up and come back down. If past movements on similar companies are indicative, Tilray spiked at almost 3 times what it is at today, which could see Aurora spike up around $180, and then dropping like a stone back to $60. Greed ran Tilray up past it’s generally accepted value. Fear brought it back down. Looking at the news, the analyts are searching for the button that will send Aurora screaming skyward. This is my guess at how high is high, and how far the fall will be afterward.
Them and every other Tom dick and harry. Saliva is stopgap. Blood is the real indicator, and aside from roadside blood draws, breath will be the eventual way things go. There is a precedent with blood alcohol concentration, just need the hardware to detect THC. Something like an FAIMS cell....
As far as having all of my eggs in the Cannabix basket, for THC breath testing, it's the only game in town. Hound is privately held, no stock available, or I'd have some of them too. In the mean time, it's a toss up whether they will be able to produce a commercially viable device on a time line that gets them some market share. I'm holding long, and will continue to do so.
I'm not as optimistic as some folks about the sister breathtec, there are plenty of ways to test for disease in blood - if the problem is severe enough, draw the blood and run the test. It's not an issue of privacy or collecting DNA or whatever. I see that side of the house as a redundant diagnostic tool.
Now if someone could invent a commercially viable hand held THC breathalyzer... THAT would be the ticket to success!!
Same difference. It's all subjective, not objective. Talking dogs, watching for smoke signals. All bullshit, easy to overturn with a good lawyer. Objective device - blow in it, a number or three are displayed. Officer looks up numbers on printed table, lets suspect go because there is no active THC in breath. Simple, to the point. Active THC detected, it's compared with the two metabolite levels, table of values that the state uses to determine impairment is consulted, Cheech goes to the slammer.
No, we need a working device. Enough of the fluff and bullshit.
I'm not even particularly concerned with what constitutes impairment. I think that is up to the legislators to decide, not the manufacturer of an analytical device. Show the numbers, let the LEO look up the numbers on a hard copy of a table to interpret, and let the process go from there.
If a warrant is required to draw blood, and a blood draw is required to convict, I would expect that a breathalyzer would be the basis of the search warrant. Or could be the basis. A piece of analytical equipment that provides an impartial repeatable result will "stand up in court" better than the magic talking dog that tells a person that there are drugs in the car. My opinion.
I agree on the uselessness of court certification. No court in the land will certify anything. They will choose to accept or not accept the results from a field device. But it's like an OSHA approved safety device. Doesn't exist. OSHA does not approve anything - they provide requirements that are either met or not met.
I really don't give a rats ass about Hound, or their technology, or where they are in the development process. If they were a publicly traded company I would, and I would own stock in them. But they are not. I do give a rats ass about Cannabix. I agree that it's way past time to put a working device in the light of the public eye. Even if it's a black box with a straw that a person blows into and the numbers show something. They don't have to show the guts of their technology - but it's high time they show something. They still have excellent cash reserves, let's see what they have been working on.
If they are in blood they are in breath, reference Boyle's Law of partial pressures. The membranes in the lungs pass gaseous molecules through, they do not filter. Once it is in breath, the FAIMS technology used by Cannabix is an excellent way to isolate each compound and then quantify it. So to answer the question, yes, my opinion is that Dr. Yost and crew are the right guys to do the work (the term "guys is used as a non gender-specific term).
So I saw Hound's latest tweet and figured I'd ask a couple of questions. I had to break up my questions into multiple tweets because (I learned) Twitter has a charachter count limit on posts. Here is what I asked:
Does the Hound breathalyzer detect ?9-tetrahydrocannabinol (“THC”), or the two key metabolites, namely 11-hydroxy-delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol and 11-nor-9-carboxy-tetrahydrocannabinol?
Ingested THC is metabolized via the hepatic portal circulation to 11-hydroxy-delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol prior to oxidation to 11-nor-9-carboxy-tetrahydrocannabinol.
Smoked THC is converted predominantly to 11-nor-9-carboxy-tetrahydrocannabinol which is then glucuronidated to a water-soluble form that can be detected in body fluids.
With this being the case, detection and quantification of all three compounds (?9-tetrahydrocannabinol, 11-hydroxy-delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol and 11-nor-9-carboxy-tetrahydrocannabinol, would give an accurate picture of whether the person had smoked or ingested the THC and by quantifying the THC in its unmetabolized form, would give authorities the basis for determining impairment.
In my opinion, if the three separate compounds cannot be detected and quantified, the results will not stand a court challenge as the basis of a warrant.
The same issue that saliva testing and urine testing has. It detects compounds that do not necessarily impair. In a zero tolerance policy that is sufficient to terminate employment but will not stand court scrutiny for proving impairment.
So the question I have is, based on the latest press release and all of the speculation, press releasese by competition, and bashing of this stock, can any competitor detect and quantify ?9-tetrahydrocannabinol, 11-hydroxy-delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol and 11-nor-9-carboxy-tetrahydrocannabinol in low concentrations and low flow rates?
If so, they are competition.
If not, my opinion is they are blowing smoke.
University research projects get funded through grants. The UF analytical chemistry department has licensed their technology for commercialization to Cannabix Technologies. They get funding in return. UC Berkely is working with the lap dogs, without any real information beyond the fluff press releases (we’re the best, rah rah rah), can they detect those three molecules? The “wet chemistry” analytical process they described in a recent press release seemed to target one specific molecule. What about the other two?
A question for Huestis is, can recency of use be determined quantitatively with only the input molecule, or are the byproduct/output molecule concentrations needed as well? Same question for Draeger et al.
Exactly. What are the shelf life and storage requirements of the cartridges? How are the various reagents metered in? Is there a metering pump? How is it calibrated? Does dosing vary with ambient temperature? I can go on. Privately held company can claim the sun shines out of their ass, zero ramifications.
The write up I saw had the chemical analysis finished with examination under a UV light, and the amount the sample fluoresces , or glows, is measured to determine concentration. Concentration can be backed into recency of use. Personally I think the “wet chemistry” analysis approach is not going to stand up to scrutiny in court, but that has been beat to death on this board.
I fixed it - I just put him on my "ignore" list. I'm not sure which is worse - continuous hollow bashing or continuous hollow praise.
Why do we invest? Why do we pick a certain stock or fund and put our money in it? I am not any sort of investment expert, hell, I think it’s a casino. I have tried to pick stocks and day trade based on numbers, graphs and recommendations. Usually I lose. A buddy of mine tried to make a living day trading awhile ago. He was a very analytical guy, had a room full of computers streaming data at him. He could not make enough to justify not working a regular job, abandoned it as a primary source of income. So I go back to my question – Why do I invest? Simple answer. To make money. Why do I pick a certain stock or fund to put money in? Or more correctly, how do I pick one? Two things – upside potential, and probability of it actually doing something. For upside potential the company has to be priced low enough to be able to move upward. Pennies are great for this. For probability of actually doing something, look at the industry and what the company actually does. Cannabix was recommended to me on this basis – pot is going legal, we as a society need a pot breathalyzer. Simple concept. I did some looking – these guys were the only ones I found that were publicly traded. Made the choice even easier. So where did I start? I picked up just under 200K shares at around 12 cents a share. I’ve been riding this a little over three years. I’ve taken out my original seed money, sitting on a little more than three quarters of the shares I started with. I’m up nicely.
What are the current strengths of the company? The UF connection, for one. The patents they have applied for and have rights to, for another. Weaknesses? Their management team. Plain and simple. Management is weak, they may know the technical side and some of the interface with law enforcement, but this has been a chaotic journey thus far. Let’s look externally to the company – what are the opportunities? Introducing a functional device and selling thousands of units is a tremendous opportunity. Selling the company to an established manufacturer of similar devices who has manufacturing capacity and a distribution network in place is another opportunity. What are the threats? Biggest threat is to never finish R&D and fail to bring a functional device to market. Secondary threat is for a competitor to market a working device significantly sooner than Cannabix. I think if two come out within a few months of each other both will be OK, but if the competition has too much of a head start (I’d say half a year or so) and their device actually works, it’s over.
I’ve previously expressed my assessment of what I know of the hound technology and what I know of Cannabix technology. I think Cannabix has the pieces on the table, it’s just a matter of putting them together and completing the puzzle in a timely manner. How long do we have? Good guess. I don’t think the hound device will do very well in court, I can establish a handful of questions that would get it thrown out. As I said in the beginning, I’m up nicely on this stock, and I think it’s worth holding for awhile longer. Your tolerance to pain, bullshit and risk may vary. In the mean time, it's counterproductive to cheer this stock blindly, and it's equally counterpoductive to bash it.
The purity of the solutions needed to process a breath sample shouldn't be an issue as long as they are manufactured and packaged in a controlled environment and have sealed packages, handling instructions, expiration dates, etc. I (my opinion)think that the chemical manipulation of a breath sample to perform a quantitative analysis is extremely contestable in a court of law. Solutions are added to the sample. How much of the solution was added? Was the dosing pump that added it recently calibrated? Is the amount of solution added variable with temperature? Is the solution thicker or thinner with temperature changes? Was the solution added from a sealed container? Was it expired or not? These questions would apply to every manipulation of the sample. Then the interpretation of the results. The processed sample flouresced. How bright was it? How is the brightness measured? Is the brightness measuring device calibrated? How often. The list goes on.
A mass spectrometer is a different animal. Pass a couple traceable calibration gasses through it and verify it's within acceptable accuracy and you're off to the races. And the mass spectrometer based unit can be used to verify accuracy of the chemical analysis unit. I think we have a technically superior product on our hands. The key variables are the management team, who might buy the company, and of course, timing.
Huge difference in approach. The hound labs approach is an application of analytical chemistry - a subject I barely passed. The little I remember involved precise measurements of substances on very small scales. Even as a repetetive process it is a daunting task to analyze a breath sample using their method in a laboratory setting. If they develop a device, the legal challenges I would forsee would focus on the calibration of the dosing and measuring parts of the device. The solutions need to be added at very specific, repeatable ratios.
Also, they say this in the abstract - Chemical compositions and methods provide labeling, detection and measurement of target substances in exhaled human breath, and can be implemented in connection with a handheld device—much like a Breathalyzer portable breath testing unit for alcohol.
So are they developing a handheld device, or a process that will be implemented using a room sized device that is used (in connection with) a handheld device? Important details.
Good find. The main difference is we are using FAIMS technology where the sample is directly analyzed to see what is in it. They are using a wet analytical process involving many outside reagents and solutions. I think the Cannabix device will be less subject to legal challenges. We'll see.
I’m not condoning zero tolerance. A binary tool gives probable cause to draw blood and run a lab test to determine concentration. It keeps the police from having to call a judge in the middle of the night for a warrant, or from relying on magic dogs telling them someone might be high. A binary breathalyzer would sell as many as could be manufactured, now. If Cannabix doesn’t do it, someone else will fill the vacuum.
What Cannabix is purporting to develop is merely a tool. It analyzes a breath sample and displays a number that is the concentration of THC in the blood. How that information is used is up to the legislative branch of the government. Whether or not having THC in blood is legal is up to the legislative branch of the government. All Cannabix is doing is providing a device to facilitate enforcement of some limit on behavior established by someone else. We are getting wrapped around the axle worrying about what defines impairment, what synergistic impairment will result from mixing THC with something else - news flash - it doesn't matter. What does matter is timing. Right now, at 9:15am on Wednesday, April 18th, there is a SCREAMING demand for a THC breathalyzer. Something that looks, feels and works more or less like the alcohol breathalyzer. What does matter is that if Cannabix is going to take 4 to 7 years to perfect their device, they will be entering a market with several devices already in use. Pick a couple - Hound, Draeger, Agilent, heck, given three or four years and a mountain of cash I could develop one. A good enough device now (binary, yes or no) is better than a perfect device too late. Binary gives law enforcement probable cause to do a blood draw. Done. Let's drag this thing over the finish line. Sooner, rather than later.
Interesting specification. Not surprising given the widespread meth problems in North America. Now the real questions. (1) how long will it take Dr Yost to tune the FAIMS cell to meth, and (2) does the hound unit have potential to be able to detect meth? We’ll see.
The problem with a yes/no device is that it is much easier to develop. For all we know, the folks over at dogsnose have a magic box that gives a yes/no and they are trying to make it into a percent and recency of use device. A spit swab could probably be devleoped to do a yes/no device. I do agree that a yes/no would serve a majority of purposes, but I think that from the cannabix technologies perspective that it is more lucrative to keep putting the word out there that a percent and recency of use device is right around the corner, because it keeps the end users keyed up waiting for it instead of breaking and going to a yes/no device. There will eventually be one or more percent/recency of use devices on the market. Some will be better than others. If it's a mystery device that the maker refuses to disclose principles of operation it will be viewed with much skepticism by courts and employment lawyers. The cannabix device uses technology that (1) will stand up to legal scrutiny because industry experts in the field will understand how it works and validate it as a working technology (expert witnesses),(2)is sufficiently complicated so as to keep casual counterfieters from making cheap knockoffs in asian sweatshops, and (3) is protected by patents to keep the larger companies at bay.
In perspective, the market has been in turmoil. We are entering a trade war with one of our largest trading partners. This stock is nothing special until they produce a marketable device. Personally I'm ahead. My average price per share is just below 22 cents. If it dips lower, I may pick up more. We'll see.
Problem is it is a political question, not a technical question. We as the detector do not set policy, that is for the legislative branch of government to do. Then our device is used by the executive branch to enforce the law, and the judicial branch makes sure that the tool works properly and that citizens rights are not being violated. We are only a meter. Nothing more.
I wouldn't hold my breath over the annual meeting. That is typically a formality, a procedure that must be followed in order to be a corporation in whatever nation they are in. January was our last press release. One is due based on past history and based on the need for the device becoming more pressing as July approaches. I agree with the need to stop trying to discern a message out of the ether. If they say nothing, they have said exactly that. Nothing. Let's get a press release with some meat to chew on and discuss.
Not really concerned. Canada is the opening act. Each state in the US is scrambling looking for ways to enforce what they have legalized. Once Canada goes legal, look for Cannabix to have a significant presence. That's the test bed, the proving ground. Once the science is proven north of the border it'll be an easy day in the US. Saliva tests are easy to refute. There are questions as to whether the tests detect active THC or metabolites, and if the substances detected (metabolites) actually impair a person while they are driving. Court acceptance is like OSHA acceptance for safety gear - OSHA does not accept or approve anything. They will determine if a piece of equipment meets the performance requirements. In my opinion the same will apply to the Cannabix detector. Courts won't "approve" or "accept" the device. Given enough backup and a lack of competing technology they may allow the output data from the device to be admissible in court. Time will tell.
There were two models used, one had a straight straw type mouthpiece, the other had a mouthpiece that looked remarkably like the one on the computer rendering of the Cannabix breathalyzer.