A safer way for police to test drug evidence

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). "A safer way for police to test drug evidence: What's in the bag?." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 17 September 2019. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190917115455.htm>.

This article titled, “A safer way for police to test drug evidence” published with the help of research conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) examines a new method for police officers to field test drugs. The idea behind this new test is that police officers if they suspect the presence of drugs, can swipe the outside of the packaging and test that for contaminants, known as the ‘swipe method’. This is the same process used by TSA in airports when they carry out random checks on luggage looking for any residue of substances. This method is hopefully going to replace the scooping method, which has recently faded in popularity amongst police departments. The scooping method required officers to scoop a portion of the substance they were testing and drop it in a solution looking for a color change. This often caused safety problems so this new test for drug evidence should hopefully be safer and more efficient. During the research phase, they found that “swiping the outside of a package correctly predicted its contents 92% of the time. In cases involving fentanyl and other opioids, the outside of the package predicted the contents 100% of the time… The 8% of non-matches involved cases where several bags of different material were placed together by police into a single evidence bag, allowing for cross-contamination.”

This new technique for detecting drug evidence has the potential to be very important in the field of forensic science. In addition to the high accuracy rates in predicting the substance in the bag, many could argue that this research was a waste because the forensics lab could easily come to the same conclusions. This is true, however, if officers collect evidence and send it to the lab they would need a warrant first, but this new test can be conducted quickly and on the spot and if the substance tests positive the officers can make an arrest immediately. The new test could also be important in helping protect officers. Many powder-like drugs, when the storage unit is opened, can poof into the air, similar to flour, so this new technique is safer in that it eliminates the chance any of the drug escapes, into the air, since the officer is only swiping the side of the bag. 

Overall, I thought this article was well-written, extremely informative, and well supported by data. The authors do a really good job of highlighting their new method for testing drug evidence, and discussing how it would be used by police officers in the field. The article mentions how drugs are tested in the lab using the color test but that often fails with some of the new “designer drugs” on the market. The one thing I would change is that I would write more about some of the shortcomings of this test. While the data clearly points to it being helpful and accurate, I’m sure there are some areas researchers are looking to improve and the article does not really touch upon that.