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Uncategorized Monday, July 25th 2011 at 12:26 pm

New Technology Can Perform a Drug Test Using Fingerprints

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If you’ve ever watched CSI or a comparable detective or crime scene show, you know that fingerprints are the holy grail of everything, can be picked up as partials off of thin-air, are always found in AFIS and belong to a person of interest. You probably also know that most of that is just Hollywood magic, but thanks to new, real-life technology from Paul Yates and his colleagues at Intelligent Fingerprinting, fingerprints can now be used for drug testing. What’s more, the results are available in a matter of minutes.

As it turns out, if you are on drugs, you sweat out evidence in your fingerprints. Granted, you won’t be sweating out the actual drugs, but rather unique, broken-down by-products. The exact amounts are minuscule, but with this technology, that information can be used to determine if the finger’s owner has been using or is currently under the influence of drugs like nicotine, cannabis, cocaine and even methadone.

The new scanning technology works by coating the fingerprint residue with gold nanoparticles covered in antibodies. The antibodies will then stick to certain metabolites (byproducts of drugs, specifically) at which point a dye will highlight the metabolites the antibodies have singled out and bam, quick and easy drug testing.

Naturally, technology stands to absolutely revolutionize on-site drug testing practices much in the way the breathalyzer did. You leave fingerprints everywhere all the time, which would severely limits an individual’s ability to claim that they are private, which makes the test difficult to refuse. By the same logic, fingerprinting is decidedly less invasive than any other sobriety tests which currently involve playing Simon says, having a device stuck in your mouth or having a needle stuck in your arm, and it has a proven form of identification built right in. And all that is to say nothing of the ability to provide convenient, definitive, on-the-spot evidence of cannabis intoxication, something that is nigh-impossible with current technology.

The new tech was only recently announced at the ULC International Crime Science Conference last week and there’s little information to be had about the technologies mobility or price, but the potential applications are myriad. Better get on the straight and narrow right-quick, because as it turns out there’s a wealth of information in even a fleeting touch.

(via New Scientist)

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  • http://www.facebook.com/thatninjaslicy Matt Bowie

    what. a. bunch. of. haters. seriously. it’s things like this that make me hate scientists. but i suppose it’s better than a cop telling a kid that his tongue is green from smoking herb. which i have witnessed and laughed at on multiple occasions. it would be quite useful for DWI cases however, in that it would be coded to the owner through fingerprint, and he couldn’t just call up his buddies to do the breathalyzer for him. and that would be pretty cool not having drunk drivers out and about. also, this should be categorized under PSA and not regular articles, for this is a great service you have provided by warning us of those people’s (the police) technological advancements.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Tim-Steinbach/34308500 Tim Steinbach

    Great… Hooray for technology  Let’s not find a cure for cancer or anything like that. Let’s develop 2343,56767,654 ways to test people for drugs

  • Anonymous

    Yeah.  We have a great test for drugs, incompetently applied and incorrectly read.  The drugs don’t even affect our ability to do our job and, in fact, may even be prescribed by a physician.  Doesn’t matter, you failed a drug test.

    With regard to current drug tests:

    “The majority of labs don’t follow any
    guidelines Their accuracy rate is about 82%.

    The bulk of errors could be attributed to
    inadequate personnel, poor management, broken chain of custody,
    faulty maintenance, and faulty transmissions of reports and records,
    rather than the tests themselves. No government or industry agency is
    responsible for monitoring the quality of work done at these
    labs.”

    But it’s in your permanent file.  You failed a drug test.

    In another place, the rate of false positives varies widely, from about .8% to over 60%.  In some labs, there’s a base rate of false positives of 3-5% from dirty glassware.

    If the lab techs are incompetent, what does the “bells and whistles” on the test matter?  

    I have not verified any of these numbers.  Somebody came up with them, somehow, as near as I can tell, _not_ in any peer reviewed journal (which just would mean that someone checked everything to make sure it was either “the usual way we do things” or “a good way to do things”, and not that it was necessarily correct).  However, the suspicion that “something is rotten in the state of Drug Testing” is not harmed by the lack of hard numbers.

    After all, we know that you’re all drug dealers because of the cocaine on your money.  We can measure it in our lab.

  • Anonymous

    Speaking of drug test errors:

    IU hired Colorado-based auditor Forensic Consultants Inc. to examine
    the paper records for every positive test result from 2007 to 2009.
    Auditors found errors in 10 percent of marijuana cases and 32 percent of
    cocaine cases. They were working on the substance involved in the most
    cases — alcohol — when informed by email to “place a hold” on the audit.

    “What they have done,” said prominent Indianapolis defense attorney
    J.J. Paul, “is open Pandora’s box, and now they want to close it just as
    they get to the greatest number of cases that affect the greatest
    number of people.”

    …
     
    http://www.theagitator.com/2011/07/20/indiana-may-halt-crime-lab-investigation/

    Even when a drug testing *lab* is found to have an absurd error rate, it’s allowed to stand. We’ll see if this field test stands up to independent review, but even then, it probably won’t matter. It hasn’t stopped law enforcement agencies from using any other field tests that regularly give false positives.

  • Anonymous

    Geekosystems sure seems excited about the new ability to monitor how I choose to live my personal life.

  • john frum

     Handshake causes false positive.

  • Anonymous

    john frum has it right. If someone’s fingertips are leaving residue everywhere, what’s to say it isn’t transferred? And like michaelk42 said, it won’t stop law enforcement using tests that have been proven to be wrong or indeterminate. Look at how many agencies and companies – and now even lovers! – are demanding polygraph test when it is INCREDIBLY easy to get false positivies AND negatives.Speaking of cocaine residue: I was once fined about $800 in 2006, forced to turn around back into New York from Montreal because they allegedly found cocaine residue on my driver’s license. How many bartops, bartenders & bouncers have held my license in the years I’ve had it? They told me to just pay the fine and “don’t even try coming back for a few years.”This new drug test claims to give immediate results for cannabis intoxication. Cannabis stays in the body sometimes more than a month, your body is continually metabolizing it, even though the high doesn’t last longer than several hours. How is sweating out the metabolites through your fingertips days later any different from pissing them out days later?Considering all of the misery in the world, this hysteria in seeking out what people do in their own time to their own bodies reeks of totalitarianism, and is especially hypocritical considering the dangers of the legal drugs alcohol & tobacco, and the massive profits those companies rake in.I can understand doing tests on someone driving dangerously or who has caused an accident on the road or at work, but this rampant testing of everybody all the time is a HUGE invasion of privacy – even if my fingerprints are declared public.

  • Huh?

    I’m sorry, but gold-labeled antibody technology is not ‘new’ by any means.  There’s already an instant, on-site test called DrugWipe, which can be used to test surfaces, sweat or saliva and has been in use for more than 15 years all over the world.  So, how is this going to ‘revolutionize’ drug testing?

  • Reliant One

    It never amazes me that when any drug testing article comes out, all the drug users, abusers and addicts start whining. Thye claim that this is their personal life and no one should tell them what to do. Well, let me tell you something. When you come to work under the influence of ANY substance and affect my safety, I’m concerned. When you get behind the wheel under the influence of ANY substance and jeopardize the life of me and my family, I’m concerned. When you can’t get a job because you can’t pass a drug test and stay on wellfare and unemployment that all the working people pay for, only to use that money to purchase more drugs and/or alcohol, I’m concerned. When your drug use causes you to neglect your family, your kids, and you give do nothing but show them that your drugs mean more to you than they do, I’m concerned. When you would rather risk getting caught cheating on a drug test than quit using drugs, I’m not concerned… I just feel sorry for you.

    If you want to stay home, never go out in public where you can do harm to others or risk the safety of others and smoke/drink/shoot-up/abuse yourselves silly, go ahead. But the first time you risk someone other than yourself, I’m very concerned.

  • guest

     Actually, most employers use HHS certified labs who have very high standards and are consistently monitored by The Department of Health & Human Services  (formerly SAMHSA). These labs are required to maintain strict standards as well as have all testing areas locked down so no one can tamper with the tests.

    All preliminary positives are sent into further testing using GC/MS, which is over 99% accurate. After that the result goes to an MRO (Medical Review Officer) who will call the donor first to see if there is any reason for the result (such as a valid prescription), and he/she will make the final call on whether it is termed a positive or negative.

    The numbers you posted are not even close to accurate and the fact that “most labs” are not monitored and have no guidelines is completely inaccurate when it comes to employer drug testing. However, there are many small labs within hospitals and clinics who perform drug tests for medication monitoring, but that is only to make sure you are not abusing your prescription narcotics. The worst case scenario in that situation is that your doctor stops prescribing you drugs. 

  • S Patel

    if you drug test the  The population of the United Kingdom  you ill be shoke as to how meny pepole smoe or take drugs ?
    on top of this shok you will find that so meny pepole work in nhs goverment inforcment food and education very very highly professional jobs

    i am a ex smoker and drugs user as i have been force to live on buttons
    good for me to to rehabilitate my life
     
    im dyliic and struel to spell and coranet my life and ony drugs helpe me to get to wear i a today in my life  by useing  smoke

    ok wot i wood like to sy i how come so meny drug user work in profitionel jobs and i cant even get a jod  ?
    as to my edction reszelst no rezelets

    also theas pepole drive and look afetr chidern

    so now is actchely braking the law??

    coments to s.patel@ntlworld.com