Techniques for detecting cannabinoid, opioid, and virus aerosols in an exhaled breath are provided. An example method of identifying a virus-containing aerosol in exhaled breath includes capturing a breath input in an aerosol filter cartridge, disposing the aerosol filter cartridge in an optical path in a spectroscopy system, detecting one or more infrared spectral features of the breath input with the spectroscopy system, and identifying the virus-containing aerosol based on the one or more infrared spectral features.