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from the I'm-positive-there-are-false-positives dept.
Pro Publica and The New York Times Magazine have each written about field drug testing by U.S. law enforcement agencies. The tests are undertaken with disposable kits containing chemicals. A sample is brought into contact with the chemicals and there may be a colour change, which is assessed by the officer. The essay tells the story of people against whom criminal charges regarding illegal drugs were filed, with the results of these field testing kits as the primary evidence in the prosecutions.
According to the essay, the use of the kits has various pitfalls which can lead to false positive results. For one thing, analytes which are legal to possess can produce the same colour change as illegal substances. For another, poor lighting which may be encountered in the field can distort the officer's perception of colours. Confirmation bias can occur. Also, officers may receive inadequate (or--the submitter supposes--incorrect) training in the interpretation of the colours. A former Houston police chief offered the opinion that
Officers shouldn't collect and test their own evidence, period. I don't care whether that's cocaine, blood, hair.
The essay mentions gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy (GC-MS), an instrumental method which is typically undertaken in a laboratory, as providing more reliable results. The submitter notes that portable GC-MS equipment does exist (1, 2).
Nationwide, 62 percent of forensics labs do not conduct further testing in cases in which a field drug test was used and the defendant made a guilty plea. However, the Houston crime laboratory has been doing such testing. They have found that false positives are commonplace. The district attorney's office for Harris County, Texas, which handles cases from Houston, has been informed about those test results and is undertaking "efforts to overturn wrongful convictions." In three years, about as many such convictions have been overturned in Harris County as in the rest of the United States.
Referenced stories:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @02:37PM
I wrote about it in the post below yours [soylentnews.org], so see there for more information.
Just to answer your question: they do a lab test... it just takes them a few weeks. Of course, the arrestee spends those few weeks in prison. Once the labs confirm it's flour, you're free to go - have fun putting your life back together after disappearing for a month!
(Score: 2) by Username on Tuesday July 26 2016, @02:52PM
The only reason anyone would keep flour in a tied up plastic bag is to pass it off as drugs.
So either they’re trying to scam someone or they’re trying to sell drugs. Both are illegal.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @05:07PM
This post is frightening. I do not want to live on the same planet as you. My supermarket sells powdered sugar in a plastic bag. The hipster co-op across the street even sells powdered sugar and flour in unmarked plastic bags, and they provide twist-ties as well.
You're an small-minded idiot, you're leaping to conclusions, and you are a threat to liberty.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday July 26 2016, @05:16PM
I'm worried of getting pulled over every time I carry my climbing gear and chalk bag...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @05:31PM
The drug laws themselves are illegal and fraud needs some sort of proof. By your logic card writer possession should be illegal, though i'm sure there are perfectly legitimate uses for them, like city pool membership cards, etc. IOW, you're a treasonous slave, you're just too brainwashed to know it.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday July 26 2016, @06:06PM
They don't just test baggies though. They'll also test that little bit of white powder in your trunk. The one from the flour bag breaking open when you were coming home from the grocery store yesterday.
Or that white smear of powdered sugar from when you dropped the doughnut.
Or (this has happened) the bit where you dropped the headache powder.
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Wednesday July 27 2016, @12:07AM
Or the little white spot of foam the detailers left on the carpet in your truck. That happened. I made four searches without finding the story again but it ended with his job gone, his girlfriend gone, and his truck seized. With "tests" like those out there, it's only sheer luck that's saving you from winding up like someone in a country western song.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @06:13PM
Heh, be careful what you wish for. Although I'm sure there is nothing in your life that could possibly be misconstrued by law enforcement as somehow being illegal. In particular by someone who really, really wants to find something, anything at all.
Good luck with that.
But please don't wish that hellhole world on me.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Tuesday July 26 2016, @10:36PM
urine idjit, username, i know both drug users and non-drug users, and non-drug users who are rabidly anti-drug (because they are fraidy cat morons), and THEY ALL use baggies ALL the time for ALL kinds of shit that has nothing to do with drugs or passing off white powder as drugs...
as i say, urine idjit...
i use them to store wildflower seeds in, seedheads and all, and -you know what- to a moron-in-a-hurry, *might* look like a certain quasi-illegal herb...
*gasp*
SWMBO often uses them to prepackage cooking ingredients (including flour and sugar!!!) for her cooking club at school...
*gasp*
can you IMAGINE (nevermind empathize) outside of YOUR OWN limited life experiences ? ? ?
('if i don't do it /need it/ want it/see it/ like it then nobody else should, too, wah wah wah')
*sheesh*