Lawyer Offers Device for Sale to Test Sobriety

Let’s see: keys, lipstick, driver’s license and cash. Is that everything? Oops, can’t go out without the Personal Digital Alcohol Detector.

A Newbury Park defense attorney is selling a hand-held, do-it-yourself Breathalyzer machine for those who want to measure the level of booze in their body before driving.

Just blow and learn if you’re sober, all in less than 10 seconds, according to promotional material for the product.

For $65.50, which includes batteries and a velveteen carrying case, lawyer Ronald A. Jackson will also throw in a copy of his 58-page paperback book “Understanding Your Blood Alcohol Concentration.”

“Not only will these products save drinkers fines and possible jail time, they have the potential to save literally thousands of lives on our nation’s roads,” says Jay North, an Ojai public relations guy hired by Jackson to push the product.

While Jackson touts the detector as an anti-drunk-driving tool to help social drinkers make informed decisions about driving, cops are skeptical.

Officers ask: Should someone who needs this really be driving at all?

*

How much marijuana can a legal medicinal user grow?

It’s a question that has yet to be put to the test in Ventura County, but there are two cases in the local legal hopper that may pave the way to an answer.

One involves a Lockwood Valley couple and their two friends, all of whom say they are legal patients, who were busted recently, allegedly with 342 plants. The other is a Camarillo woman, also a medicinal user, who was reportedly growing 68.

In an earlier case, charges were dropped against a Simi Valley retiree who was growing 14 plants in his backyard in 1998.

According to activist Andrea Nagy, who once ran a cannabis club in Thousand Oaks but stopped handing out pot after too many legal hassles, there is no limit for legal users.

“The law is very clear,” Nagy said last week after helping to bail the Lockwood foursome out of jail. “It doesn’t put a limit on personal possession. I am absolutely astounded that they are still arresting patients.”

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Chris Harmon, who is prosecuting the Camarillo case, said there is a measuring stick.

“The Court of Appeal said a person with arthritis . . . can’t stockpile a hundred pounds,” Harmon said. “[Precedent] says the quantity should be reasonably related to current medical needs.”

To that argument, Nagy responded: “You should be able to grow your medicine continuously or all at once in case you get too sick to do so.”

*

Remember what Mom said: Don’t talk to strangers.

Authorities in Camarillo are warning of two telephone scams that have been tried recently on more than a dozen residents.

In one, a caller claims to be with the “Consumer Protection Agency” and tells an unsuspecting resident that his or her new credit card has not been activated. The caller then asks for the card number.

In the other, the caller says he is with a long-distance telephone service and that someone has been illegally trying to change the resident’s long-distance carrier. The caller then asks for a Social Security number.

Cops warn that people should never give out personal information over the telephone unless they are familiar with the business and have initiated the contact.

“A con artist can use your personal information to commit fraud and identity theft,” said Ventura County Sheriff’s Senior Deputy Jim Aguirre.

Both of those crimes have been rampant in the county, cops said. So just say no.

*

Holly J. Wolcott can be reached at 653-7581 or at holly.wolcott@latimes.com.