Roadside Drug Testing Reliability in Utah
The incidents described
below have been reported by media in other states and raise important
issues concerning presumptive field tests used by police to attempt to
identify illegal drugs. These same methods and procedures are often
used by Utah law enforcement officers. If you are facing prosecution
for drug crimes or
other offenses in Utah, contact
us today to see what the right criminal
defense attorney can do for you.
Are roadside drug tests (field tests) reliable?
Posted November 20, 2017
In
December 2015, a driver was
pulled over for a minor traffic violation. During the stop,
the police officer noticed some crystal flakes of the floor of the car.
The driver insisted that the crystals were
just flakes of glaze from a Krispy Kreme doughnut. The
officer with her years of training and experience, didn’t buy
it. Believing the substance was “some sort of narcotic,”
police officers used a roadside test kit to test the substance, and the
results came up positive for methamphetamine. The driver was
arrested and charged with possession of
methamphetamine.
Evidence gathered from the car
was sent for further testing at the state's crime lab. These results
vindicated the driver - showing
that the crystalline flakes were not a controlled substance.
In a similar and more recent incident,
another driver who was employed as a handyman was pulled over for
driving without headlights. Police saw on the floor of
the car some white dust. The driver knew the substance was simply
drywall dust, but officers were still suspicious and tested the
substance with a field test kit. Results showed positive for
cocaine. The driver was arrested and charged with possession
of
cocaine.
Inexpensive field tests like the ones
used by police in these two cases are used by police
departments around the country. Mounds of evidence show these
tests routinely produce false positives and are far from
reliable. They appear to be simple, but a lot can go
wrong. An investigation by ProPublica and The New York Times
found that tens of thousands of people are sent to jail based on the
results of a roadside drug test.
“Some tests…use a single tube of a chemical called cobalt thiocyanate,
which turns blue when it is exposed to cocaine. But cobalt thiocyanate
also turns blue when it is exposed to more than 80 other compounds,
including methadone, certain acne medications and several common
household cleaners. Other tests use three tubes, which the officer can
break in a specific order to rule out everything but the drug in
question — but if the officer breaks the tubes in the wrong order,
that, too, can invalidate the results. The environment can also present
problems. Cold weather slows the color development; heat speeds it up,
or sometimes prevents a color reaction from taking place at all.”
Despite the many problems with using
these roadside test kits, police departments continue to use
them. Many people are charged with
drug
possession based on
field test results as evidence.
Finding a Criminal Defense Lawyer in Utah

The
fact that an officer sees something that "looks
like" drugs (a white crystalline substance, a powdery residue,
a
green leafy substance, etc.) does not necessarily mean that what the
officer sees is in fact a controlled substance. Looks
can be deceiving - the picture at the top
of this article is actually just ordinary table salt.
IF you have been cited, arrested, or charged for drug-related charges
in Utah based on the results of a preliminary field test performed by a
police officer, there may be a number of potential defenses available
to you.
Contact us
today to see the difference an
experienced
criminal
defense attorney can
make in your case.

A Utah criminal prosecution can result in a lifetime of consequences. Beyond jail and prison, a conviction can affect many areas of life, including employment, housing, finances, family, and much more. Never plead guilty without first consulting with an experienced criminal attorney. Understanding what is at stake is the first step....
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