How is blood-alcohol level calculated?

Question

I'm referring to common measurements such as indication of breathalyzer.

Is it:

total amount of alcohol in your body / the total amount of blood in your body

or

total amount of alcohol in your body /(total amount of alcohol in your body + total amount of blood in your body).

and say if your blood-alcohol level is 0.05, does it mean there is 5 per cent of alcohol in your given amount of blood?

please explain.

Thanks.

Answer 1

The amount of alcohol in 2,100 ml of expelled breath is exactly equivalent to the amount of alcohol in 1 ml of blood.

The legal limit for legal blood alcohol level is 0.08 in most states, down from the commonly accepted 0.10 level from some years ago. The American Medical Association (AMA) states that even that level is somewhat high. Statements that the AMA has release indicate that people can become impaired with a blood alcohol level of only 0.05. If a driver being tested has a BAC of 0.15, that means he or she has 0.15 grams of alcohol per 100 ml of blood.