False Positives

A Colorado town has found THC it its water supply. The police suspect criminal activity.

This town on Colorado’s Eastern Plains warned its residents not to drink, bathe in or cook with its tap water on Thursday because officials said multiple preliminary tests of the water came back positive for THC, the main psychoactive compound in marijuana.

==

Peter Perrone, who owns Wheat Ridge cannabis testing facility Gobi Analytical, said cannabinoids such as THC or CBD “are in no way soluble in water.”

“There is zero possibility that there’s anything like THC in the Hugo water,” Perrone said.

==

Some, like 90-year-old Maye Gene Lee, a former mayor of the town, were angry at the possibility that saboteurs may have struck the town’s water supply.

“If I could have gotten my hands on them, I would have taken care of them myself,” she said. “We shouldn’t have to worry about that. And if it happens out here in Hugo, Colo., it can happen any place.”


Well it turns out there were saboteurs all right.

And the saboteurs are the folks who started a panic over an unreliable field test.

Water in the town of Hugo is not contaminated with THC after all, state tests concluded Saturday morning.

The suspicion was first announced Thursday after county officials, using field test kits, got some positive tests results.

Saturday morning’s update from the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office said the initial test kit results are now believed to have been false positives.

Now what about ruining people’s whole lives (not just a few days) with false positives?

A field drug test is something that cops keep on them to test substances found in people’s vehicles or in their possession. A crumb found on the floor in your car, or powder in your pocket – any of that can be tested with a quick dip into one of these kits. On more than one occasion, these tests have gone wrong – indicating an illegal substance when none was present. This simple mistake has ruined lives.

In Amy Albritton’s case, she was on the road in Houston with her boyfriend at the time when they were pulled over by the cops. The officers suspected that drugs were in the car, and tested a white crumb on her floor. The field test indicated that the crumb was crack cocaine. Because the car belonged to Albritton, she ended up being charged as a felon.
False Positive Field Drug Test Means a Felony Charge

Albritton spent 21 days in jail, lost her job, and lost her apartment. It took years for her to rebuild her life, all with a felony conviction hanging over her head. She was turned away from job opportunities and places to live, all because of her record.

==

Years later, in 2014, Albritton got a letter in the mail telling her she was wrongfully convicted. They had re-tested her sample and it was negative – likely just a piece of food or lint that had made its way onto the floor of her car. In that district attorney’s office alone, 251 cases of incorrect evidence were found between 2004 and 2015 – all people who were named guilty but were actually innocent.
Wrongful Field Drug Tests Are Not Unusual

There are so many cases like hers that deserve more attention. Being labeled a felon has serious consequences that can affect a person’s work life, where they live, and how they are viewed by society. Additionally, it isn’t easy to reverse a wrongful felony conviction.

Ya. Know? Something should be done about this.

And just to make the intrusion complete we have 6 common substances that cause false positives in urine tests. They are:

Cold Remedies
Vitamin B Supplements
Ibuprofen
Poppy Seed Bagels – my favorite
Snack Bars
Tonic Water

A report from 2008. In USA Today.

The inexpensive test kits are used by virtually every police department in the country and by federal agents, including Customs officers at the nation’s borders. The kits test suspicious materials, and a positive result generally leads to an arrest and court date, pending more sophisticated tests done after the sample is sent to a lab.

The kits use powerful acids that react with the substance in a plastic pouch. If the liquid turns a certain color, it is a considered a positive result. But a number of legal products and plants test positive: chocolate for hashish; rosemary for marijuana; and natural soaps for the “date-rape drug” GHB.

The tests have no validity,” says former FBI narcotics investigator Frederick Whitehurst. And as more organic products come on the market, “the potential for civil rights violations when these presumptive tests are out there is phenomenal.”

Although police have been using the field test kits for decades, “there’s no regulation, no oversight that these drug tests perform in any way,” says Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps President David Bronner, whose products have tested positive for GHB.

With the growth of organic and natural foods and products, experts say arrests may increase.

Well we could always make the police carry a complete GCMS laboratory with them whenever they are out on drug patrol. Then make them videotape the procedure they use. That might put an end to the problem of people having potentially unauthorized chemicals in their possession.

Update: 24 July 2016 1915z

Man Mountain Molehill in a comment was discussing Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectroscopy (GCMS). Which led me to make the following comment.

One thing I didn’t note: even GCMS is not perfect. The more different substances that are in a sample the greater the chance for error.

You actually need an expectation in order to find matches. This may be OK for an ethylene cracker. It is probably not OK for rug sweepings.

He also left a link to a corrupt crime lab story. About 34,000 cases corrupt.


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

5 responses to “False Positives”

  1. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    These field tests are garbage. Lab tests, like gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy can work down to the parts per billion. Which means you could potentially be convicted for being in the general vicinity of something. Assuming the test operator is even honest.

    http://www.npr.org/2013/03/14/174269211/mass-crime-lab-scandal-reverberates-across-state

  2. Simon Avatar

    MMM,

    One thing I didn’t note: even GCMS is not perfect. The more different substances that are in a sample the greater the chance for error.

    You actually need an expectation in order to find matches. This may be OK for an ethylene cracker. It is probably not OK for rug sweepings.

  3. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    If drugs are to be illegal the minimum requirement for a conviction should be in the vicinity of a usable dose of something, not molecular residue. Any forensic test should be audited and repeatable by 3rd parties.

    I’ve watched as the limit for drunk driving has morphed from .15 to .12 to .1 to .08. You can blow a .08 by drinking some orange juice which sat in the fridge too long and fermented a little. Any law based on hysteria is bad law.[1] My suggestion is some sort of objective, repeatable field coordination test,[2] and the crime is being to f#$cked up to drive, whether on drugs, booze, cold medicine, or just plain senility.[3] With the usual 4th amendment protections, right to demand a repeatable 3rd party test and so on.

    [1] I’m looking at you, MADD

    [2] not a subjective test as judged by police, more like having to play Tetris.

    [3] I’ve seen more astoundingly bad driving from Q tips than drunks.

  4. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    When the excitement dies down this will probably turn out to some industrial rug-cleaning solvent that leaked into the lake.

  5. Randy Avatar
    Randy

    One of the real scandals that sails under the MSM radar is the the problems with these field test kits. Everyone in the criminal justice system is aware of the deficiencies yet they continue to be used. It’s as if they really aren’t interested in justice or something.