Delta High School has a new protocol that has come up in the past couple of years, and the tradition only comes up during school dances. Students going to a dance in the Delta County School District are now required to take a breathalyzer before entering a school dance. Not every student has to take a breathalyzer; only if you are in a group of people. The person who breathalyzes will choose a student at random and test them. If they pass the breathalyzer, they are free to go, but if they don’t pass the breathalyzer, they will be sent home and denied access to the dance. 

Some students may be scared that they will get a false negative and will be kicked out of a dance rather than being kicked out for actually drinking, so it’s important to know the statistics about how accurate breathalyzers actually are. According to the National Library of Medicine, one of the breathalyzers had a sensitivity of 26 percent, meaning that one in four people have false positive results. According to the Wilson Law Firm, studies have shown that breathalyzer readings vary at least 15 percent from actual blood alcohol levels, with 23% of subjects having breathalyzer results giving readings that are in excess of true blood alcohol levels. Fortunately, nobody at Delta has reportedly had an inaccurate test.

Delta High School hasn’t always made its students take breathalyzers; it’s a newer addition to the school. 

Principal Rosie Johnson explained why Delta started to use breathalyzers. “We wanted to make sure that our dances were a safe place and that kids weren’t under the influence and making bad decisions,” Johnson said. 

Students are randomly selected to be breathalyzed, so students could still come in drunk as long as they aren’t checked. But because students know there is a chance that they could be checked, maybe they won’t come intoxicated. 

“I think it at least makes kids think about what they’re doing before and be smart about the choices they are making,” Johnson said. 

Gabriella Cardenas, a sophomore at DHS, gave her opinion about the breathalyzer.  “I think it could be used more efficiently, but I think it’s smart overall,” Cardenas said.

Students may not understand why they started to implement the breathalyzers, or rather if coming to school dances intoxicated was a problem in the past or not. “People came to the school intoxicated and they’re not supposed to be, and they want to prevent DUIs on the road,” Cardenas said.