TheAgitator.com
Narco Field Tests Fail
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009Given that in the past, we’ve seen these field testing units deliver positive results on pool chalk, chocolate, and soap, this isn’t terribly surprising:
According to a new report (PDF) sponsored by the Marijuana Policy Project, field tests commonly used by police to identify marijuana and other drugs yield false positives in response to a variety of legal substances, resulting in the arrest and detention of innocent people. Worse, “millions of people have been, and continue to be, prosecuted and convicted of marijuana charges without proof that they possessed marijuana.” The author, forensic drug expert John Kelly, says an investigation he conducted in collaboration with former FBI scientist Frederic Whitehurst “reveals a drug testing regime of fraudulent forensics used by police, prosecutors, and judges which abrogates every American’s Constitutional rights”…
According to Kelly, “millions of people have been arrested, prosecuted, and convicted of marijuana charges on the basis of the Duquenois-Levine (D-L) color chemical test, both with and without a microscopic exam.” Experiments with the D-L test described at the end of the report found that ”patchouli, spearmint, and eucalyptus tested positive for marijuana, while lavender, cypress, and oregano (which previous studies showed produced false positives with the D-L test) gave inconclusive results.” In tests using just the NarcoPouch KN Reagent kit, 33 of 42 substances—including vanilla, anise, chicory, and peppermint—tested positive for cannabis.
By the time lab results come back, you could have spent thousands of dollars you won’t get back, been locked up, and had your property seized. These field units don’t just have a high margin for error, they’re essentially useless. Well, at least at testing for illicit drugs. If your goal is to get a positive match so you can make an arrest on the spot, they’re pretty darned useful.
Yesterday I told my boss (who might be going to jury duty) to watch out, prosecutors & cops lie. She just laughed. I was serious. Oh well.
I think we should just skip ahead to days when everyone will have to report, in real time, what they’re consuming, so that a government computer somewhere can issue the appropriate warrant automatically. That would eliminate all this guess-work and scientific inaccuracy. It could be used to make sure you’re taking your meds, too. It’s all for our own good.
Wasn’t that in the remake of Casino Royale? I think they injected him with some kind of monitoring device that could detect what was in his system (in the movie the type of poison) and report it instantly to their computer.
Damn, don’t want to give our drug warriors ideas. Hell, they wouldn’t even care if it had false positivies 50% of the time.
I think they’d prefer if it had false positives 50% of the time. Evidenced by the field tests they like so much.
even if the tests were 100% accurate, they’d still be bullshit.
I’m of the opinion that all of the high tech toys that police use are junk that only gets bought because the public(police included) mistakenly believes that technology is never wrong. The average person has no idea how clean everything has to be in a lab setting to get an accurate reading on a substance, let alone using some handheld device out in the field. I hate to recommend litigation, but the companies who market this stuff should be sued out of existence.
Yeah, it’s just an extension of the drug sniffing dog bullshit.
Ever seen them in action? If they sniff hard, scratch, cry, bark, lick their nuts or anything else dogs do all the time for no reason then it’s a “sign” and justifies a search.
Field tests are really just to establish probable cause sufficient ot make an arrest. If they are accurate 75% of the time, then they sort of do this job. The problem is when people willfully believe these tests are iron-clad even when information shows otherwise.
In other words, if police were real professionals dedicated to arresting actual, dangerous criminals rather than racking up arrest stats, and looking out for people’s civil rights… rather than racking up arrest stats, a field test with far less than 100% accuracy could be a useful tool to put some objective and permanent (for discovery purposes) basis as to why an officer made an arrest or augmented his search of a vehicle.
(Keep in mind, often times officers are allowed to testify that “from their experience” a subsatnce with XYZ physical characteristics is illegal narcotic X.)
WTF!! So does every criminal defendant need a Miss Vito from “My Cousin Vinny”? How does this go on here? When did the need to make arrests and get convictions trump civil liberties?? What was said a long time ago – “the price of liberty is eternal vigilance”? Sticking with the movie theme, that must have been said a long time ago in a galaxy far, far….
I have no problem with a field test that’s not 100% accurate (none ever will be) being used to establish probable cause. It’s better than relying on the officer’s intuition or whatever other silly excuse.
But when it comes to seizing assets or jailing people, sorry, it’s gotta be a double-blind independent analysis (see if any of these samples, marked 1 through 10, is a controlled substance).
And ,some $hitforbrains senator in Florida wants to drugtest all the unemployed . We are pissing away our freedom one drop at a time.
The cops don’t care. Positive test justifies the door kicking and the puppycide. That’s good enough for them.
Chance: tell your boss about fija.org. It will probably fall on deaf ears since she laughed at your comment. Maybe you can provide a few postings from Radley showing that cops, prosecutors, and judges lie and are immune to their actions, thus the system can’t be expected to breed anything BUT lies, bravado, and destruction.
I’m waiting for the day when a drug sniffing dog is used on my or my wife’s vehicles. The dog will likely sniff hard, indicating a possible “hit”, at which point they will search despite my harsh words. They will find nothing (assuming they don’t plant anything), and I will have to call them stupid and abusive because the dog had a hit because IT SMELLED OUR DOGS IN OUR VEHICLES AND WANTED TO SNIFF BECAUSE IT’S A DOG, NOT A HUMAN, AND IS DRIVEN BY ANIMAL INSTINCTS.
BamBam,
They’ll probably arrest you on some variation of insulting/harrassing the dog, an “officer”.
A few years ago the TSA took a sample of cookie crumbs from a pouch in my backpack to determine if it was drugs or not. I am surprised I didn’t get busted.
In British Columbia, when the local goons threatened to use drug-sniffing dogs on the ferries, the local cannabists threatened to begin carrying spray bottles of bongwater and spritz here-there-and-everywhere. The local goons quickly gave up on the idea.
Dogs are anything but infallible…
#13 #14 Yeah, Bambam, you’ll probably be arrested for “speaking to officers in an unreasonable tone of voice”.
Field narcotics tests, along with pre-employment drug tests are just two examples of the many legitimate money trails feeding Drug Warrior politicians who’d rather stick their heads in a hole than behave morally and discuss the downsides of current drug policies.
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#13, #14 & #17:
aka DISORDERLY CONDUCT. Every officer’s bullshit fallback charge to arrest you and teach you a lesson about RESPECT.
#18 bob42,
you left out my personal favorite: RANDOM drug tests
Rather than piss and moan, let me offer a concrete proposal to bring the Drug War to a screaming halt. HOW TO OBTAIN A PRETRIAL DISMISSAL OF MARIJUANA CHARGES OR AN ACQUITTAL OR AN EXONERATION is a book I am writing with Dr. Frederic Whitehurst for which we are seeking funding to continue as well as a publisher. It will allow anyone arrested for marijuana charges to block further prosecution or to obtain an acquittal if a case goes to to trial. It will place the law into the hands of the American people because the time is way past waiting for the U.S. government to do the right thing. If even small numbers of arrestees and prisoners begin challenging the validity and reliability of the drug tests, the government will be compelled to call a moratorium. In turn, this will provide the opportunity to transform the entire drug situation. We welcome all contacts:
kjohn39679@aol.com. The book will definitely be a best seller.
John Kelly