FL Law Enforcement Officials Host Booze & Doritos Party for Employees...to Test New Breathalyzer

Typically, employers discourage inebriation in the workplace. But in this case, Florida law enforcement officials actually paid for employees to get drunk. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (the state's version of the FBI) apparently shelled out $330 on Jim Beam whiskey, booze and Doritos back in October.

Now, before you get too frustrated, you should know that reports claim the fiesta was thrown in an effort to test out the reliability of an alcohol breathalyzer machine (even with that description some of you may still be frustrated -- especially after you read the read of the story). In sum, 15 employees attended the shindig to test out the Intoxilyzer 8000, a tool that has come under fire as being unreliable.

The group, which included crime analysts, staff assistants and police officers consumed the alcohol, was recorded as members blew into three of the units. Additionally, they had their blood drawn and sent to a lab. The Herald Tribune:

The $8,000 study, put together in three days, was part of a broader push to save the reputation of the embattled Intoxilyzer 8000, FDLE records show. And in December, FDLE's alcohol testing guru Laura Barfield came to a Sarasota County courtroom for a hearing and presented results of the drunken employee experiment to a panel of judges, saying it proved the machines were accurate.

But the study might not even be worth the $330 bar bill.

At the hearing, judges deciding the fate of the machine in Sarasota and Manatee counties seemed skeptical of even considering the study, in part because bloodwork was still at the lab and the examination was not yet finalized.

But since the test was done with such a small group of people -- and only one time -- at least one biostatistics consultant said that it may not be scientific enough to rely upon. In the end, it seems the jury is still out on the matter.

(H/T: Mail Online)