Faulty Drug Test Kits Used Widely by Law Enforcement
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 at 12:49 pm | By: Radical Russ
Topics: MPPOn Tuesday, March 3 at 1 p.m., the Marijuana Policy Project and Mintwood Media Collective will host a press conference at the National Press Club to release a new report that exposes faulty drug test kits used widely by law enforcement. The study, entitled “False Positives Equal False Justice,” reveals that the NIK NarcoPouch 908/Duquenois-Levine Reagent field test kit, the most widely used field test for identifying marijuana, as well as the majority of other drug test kits used as the basis for arrest and prosecution by law enforcement have an unacceptably high rate of rendering false positives.
In addition to testimony by experts in the field, as well as those directly impacted by these faulty tests, experiments will be performed at the press conference that will demonstrate the unreliability of various drug tests and their capacity to render false positives. Natural soap, chocolate and newspaper, among other household items, all will test positive for marijuana and other drugs such as GHB in these drug tests, yet these kits continue to be used in both arrests and prosecutions nationwide. These faulty tests result in the unjust arrest, imprisonment and even prosecution of innocent citizens.
