Written by Michael Brown
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Overwhelmed and understaffed, American law enforcement and the criminal justice system, in general, must improve its arrest and prosecution record in narcotics possession cases by being able to accurately identify illegal narcotics found in legitimate field operations on the spot. Officers need accurate tools to detect illicit drugs reliably and efficiently, and to do this, they require the training to use them effectively to facilitate streamlined identification and ensure further confirmatory tests support their initial analysis.
Accurate presumptive analysis in the field by law enforcement will decrease the number of false arrests, reducing the burden on officers, prosecutors, and laboratories while leading to more successful prosecutions. This requirement is even more critical in light of the increasing amount of fentanyl, the most lethal narcotic found on America’s streets to date, responsible for 112,000 deaths in 2023 – primarily young people and people of color.
Fentanyl in its pure form is deadly, with as little as 2 mg considered a lethal dose. However, it is being mixed with other narcotics and into fake pills designed to look like original medication. These counterfeit pills are especially dangerous because individuals think they are purchasing legitimate prescription medications at a good price and without requiring a doctor’s prescription. However, these pills, often identical to scheduled or controlled medications, frequently contain dangerous, even lethal amounts of illicit drugs. Identifying these high-risk narcotics accurately in the field is, therefore, non-negotiable and complex.
Effective presumptive analysis leads to successful prosecution
The need for reliable presumptive analysis has become more critical since California’s Senator Scott Wiener introduced the Requiring Objective and Accurate Drug Testing (ROAD Testing) Act SB 912, which “prohibits law enforcement agencies from making arrests or filing charges based on a color-based (colorimetric) drug test” within the state. The law was passed after it became known that about 30,000 arrests and convictions for possession were driven by the inaccurate identification of narcotics through colorimetric testing, a popular method of presumptive analysis. This only applies to California now, but a similar law could easily be passed in other states due to the number of false prosecutions.
This only adds to the pressure the criminal justice system faces from the increasing volumes of illicit narcotics entering the United States and circulating through all states. The estimated value of the entire illegal narcotics market sits between $200 billion and $750 billion per year. Moreover, the estimated annual cost of illicit drug abuse to American society is $181 billion, distributed across healthcare, lost productivity, law enforcement, and legal costs.
Officers do not have the luxury of time to conduct ineffective analyses of suspicious substances or send them to laboratories to find out exactly what the ingredients are. The staffing shortages police services are experiencing also make it impossible for them to manage the increased narcotic-related workload along with all their other duties. When they find a suspicious substance, which frequently happens while on patrol, they need to know quickly whether they can proceed with an arrest.
More challenges for law enforcement
The fact that dealers and distributors carry varying amounts of narcotics and that different states have different laws regarding how much constitutes a crime, increases the complexity for law enforcement when apprehending a suspect. In addition, the cartels and distributors cut (or mix) their narcotics with other substances, to sell more and increase their profit. Narcotics is a business; like any business, its goal is to meet supply, increase demand, and consistently build profitability.
The desire to increase demand results in the current state of fentanyl trafficking in America, including the low cost of the narcotic and the high mortality rates. Including small amounts of fentanyl in other drugs creates new addicts who will want a regular supply in the future.
Moreover, Fentanyl is popular among cartels because it is a synthetic opioid that is easier and cheaper to make than traditional narcotics such as heroin or cocaine. Making it in a cheap laboratory reduces the risks of disruptions to precursor supply chains and other law enforcement disturbances.
Mixing narcotics, therefore, is a reasonable move for the cartels but simultaneously makes accurate presumptive analytics more problematic. At the same time, it becomes even more essential to prevent overloading the criminal justice system.
Overcoming the challenges
Not every method of narcotic identification is guaranteed to deliver 100% accurate results. Cartels and their dealers constantly look for new ways to ‘market’ their merchandise by pressing it into different colored pill designs and using various types of wrapping and packaging, all of which pose a challenge to the officers and the narcotic identification methodologies they may use.
While colorimetric analysis has been a common form of presumptive analysis for many years, especially when dealing with trace amounts (hard to see with the naked eye) of drugs, the questions pertaining to its accuracy and the resulting false convictions put all colorimetric readings, as a standalone narcotic identification process, in the spotlight as indicated by ROAD Testing Act SB 912. The lack of certainty provides defense lawyers with suitable means to raise reasonable doubt. It must be expected that more defense attorneys will challenge the accuracy and reliability of colorimetric readings in court with a potentially corresponding drop in the successful conviction of narcotic dealers.
A more accurate methodology for presumptive analysis is for police officers to utilize an integrated approach. This entails pairing Raman Spectroscopy with colorimetric testing which better enables the accurate identification of narcotics in the field.
The Scientific Working Group for the Analysis of Seized Drugs (SWGDRUG), responsible for developing recommended standards, techniques, protocols, and policies for forensically examining seized narcotics, recognizes Raman Spectroscopy as one of the Class A analytical techniques for conducting presumptive field testing.
Access to immediate presumptive analysis capabilities that reliably and efficiently detects drugs is important for law enforcement officers. They must be able to screen suspected substances and packages, obtain quick and highly accurate results within seconds, and then generate supporting data on the spot. This capability assists officers with their initial investigation, helping to provide probable cause for searches and seizures, and ultimately giving prosecutors the irrefutable information they need to build a case successfully in court.
For officers, minimizing the likelihood of human error while conducting drug tests is crucial in ensuring the accuracy of the results. This is particularly important as traditional testing methods are often time-consuming, and samples are sent to backlogged laboratories already overwhelmed with demands for forensic analysis, leading to significant delays in obtaining verifiable results.
Additionally, accurate identification of narcotics minimizes the risks of interdicted seizures, or suspects arrested and charged, being overturned in a court of law.
What do prosecutors need from law enforcement?
Once an officer has accurately determined the type of narcotic and its volume, they have to move the case to the next stage – prosecution.
To succeed in court, prosecutors need accurate and verifiable data that can be presented as irrefutable evidence. The chain of prosecution and evidence starts at the point where a suspect is stopped and searched within the parameters of the law, and any suspicious substances found are identified as illicit narcotics. The case could be jeopardized if the starting point is questionable, and the officers do not follow set procedures. Accurate presumptive analysis is therefore critical in providing verifiable data supporting an arrest, as is following state law in stopping and searching, or serving a warrant.
The effective development of protocols and training officers to follow the necessary procedures and use of presumptive analysis capabilities optimally, will ensure that defense attorneys cannot question the validity of the tests or the testers. If they possess a recognized certification in using and understanding their devices, that will substantiate their evidence in court.
Nevertheless, even if processes are followed, confirmatory analysis is still required. This requires that the collected evidence is sent to a laboratory for final analysis to prove what substance or substances the suspect was holding. While these laboratory analyses take longer, they must be done to prove the charge and support the investigation and prosecution irrefutably. Reliable presumptive analysis will reduce the false positives labs must deal with, reducing their workload and speeding up the laboratory process.
The criminal justice complex benefits
Legal action against law enforcement officers could potentially increase significantly for arrests and prosecutions based on inaccurate or false positive readings, regardless of the methods employed. Only using a presumptive analysis technique that is accurate and reliable can effectively mitigate their risks and safeguard the reputation of the police department.
Equipping an officer with the ability to carry out presumptive narcotic analysis significantly improves the process of fast, accurate identification and confirmation of questionable substances in the field. It provides invaluable assistance to provide a significant level of probable cause resulting in the officer obtaining a search warrant for additional investigations and arrests, if necessary. Finally, it also improves arrest records among officers and their ability to support their actions in court to obtain convictions.
The criminal justice complex will waste less time, improve conviction rates, and be subject to fewer reprisals for arresting and convicting people without cause. Moreover, it will reduce needless paperwork for cases that are unlikely to succeed. Additionally, officers and first responders will have another layer of protection from accidental exposure to dangerous chemicals such as fentanyl.
As the cartels and various domestic trafficking gangs constantly look to expand their nefarious activities, local, county, state, and federal agencies must be able to confidently remove dealers, and their merchandise from the street.
Irrefutable presumptive analysis capabilities for all officers in the field has now become critical.
About Michael W. Brown
Michael W. Brown is the global director of counter-narcotics technology at Rigaku Analytical Devices. He has a distinguished career spanning more than 32 years as a Special Agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Most recently he was the DEA Headquarters staff coordinator for the Office of Foreign Operations for the Middle East-Europe-Afghanistan-India. Prior to that he served as the country attaché in India and Myanmar providing foreign advisory support for counter narcotic enforcement. He also spent 10 years in Pakistan as a special advisor to the US Embassy on various law enforcement issues. Michael is a graduate of the United States Ranger Training Battalion and has a master’s degree in interdisciplinary technology and management from the University of Eastern Michigan. Contact him at michael.brown@rigaku.com.
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Overwhelmed and understaffed, American law enforcement and the criminal justice system, in general, must improve its arrest and prosecution record in narcotics possession cases by being able to accurately identify illegal narcotics found in legitimate field operations on the spot. Officers need accurate tools to detect illicit drugs reliably and efficiently, and to do this, they require the training to use them effectively to facilitate streamlined identification and ensure further confirmatory tests support their initial analysis.
Accurate presumptive analysis in the field by law enforcement will decrease the number of false arrests, reducing the burden on officers, prosecutors, and laboratories while leading to more successful prosecutions. This requirement is even more critical in light of the increasing amount of fentanyl, the most lethal narcotic found on America’s streets to date, responsible for 112,000 deaths in 2023 – primarily young people and people of color.
Fentanyl in its pure form is deadly, with as little as 2 mg considered a lethal dose. However, it is being mixed with other narcotics and into fake pills designed to look like original medication. These counterfeit pills are especially dangerous because individuals think they are purchasing legitimate prescription medications at a good price and without requiring a doctor’s prescription. However, these pills, often identical to scheduled or controlled medications, frequently contain dangerous, even lethal amounts of illicit drugs. Identifying these high-risk narcotics accurately in the field is, therefore, non-negotiable and complex.
Effective presumptive analysis leads to successful prosecution
The need for reliable presumptive analysis has become more critical since California’s Senator Scott Wiener introduced the Requiring Objective and Accurate Drug Testing (ROAD Testing) Act SB 912, which “prohibits law enforcement agencies from making arrests or filing charges based on a color-based (colorimetric) drug test” within the state. The law was passed after it became known that about 30,000 arrests and convictions for possession were driven by the inaccurate identification of narcotics through colorimetric testing, a popular method of presumptive analysis. This only applies to California now, but a similar law could easily be passed in other states due to the number of false prosecutions.
This only adds to the pressure the criminal justice system faces from the increasing volumes of illicit narcotics entering the United States and circulating through all states. The estimated value of the entire illegal narcotics market sits between $200 billion and $750 billion per year. Moreover, the estimated annual cost of illicit drug abuse to American society is $181 billion, distributed across healthcare, lost productivity, law enforcement, and legal costs.
Officers do not have the luxury of time to conduct ineffective analyses of suspicious substances or send them to laboratories to find out exactly what the ingredients are. The staffing shortages police services are experiencing also make it impossible for them to manage the increased narcotic-related workload along with all their other duties. When they find a suspicious substance, which frequently happens while on patrol, they need to know quickly whether they can proceed with an arrest.
More challenges for law enforcement
The fact that dealers and distributors carry varying amounts of narcotics and that different states have different laws regarding how much constitutes a crime, increases the complexity for law enforcement when apprehending a suspect. In addition, the cartels and distributors cut (or mix) their narcotics with other substances, to sell more and increase their profit. Narcotics is a business; like any business, its goal is to meet supply, increase demand, and consistently build profitability.
The desire to increase demand results in the current state of fentanyl trafficking in America, including the low cost of the narcotic and the high mortality rates. Including small amounts of fentanyl in other drugs creates new addicts who will want a regular supply in the future.
Moreover, Fentanyl is popular among cartels because it is a synthetic opioid that is easier and cheaper to make than traditional narcotics such as heroin or cocaine. Making it in a cheap laboratory reduces the risks of disruptions to precursor supply chains and other law enforcement disturbances.
Mixing narcotics, therefore, is a reasonable move for the cartels but simultaneously makes accurate presumptive analytics more problematic. At the same time, it becomes even more essential to prevent overloading the criminal justice system.
Overcoming the challenges
Not every method of narcotic identification is guaranteed to deliver 100% accurate results. Cartels and their dealers constantly look for new ways to ‘market’ their merchandise by pressing it into different colored pill designs and using various types of wrapping and packaging, all of which pose a challenge to the officers and the narcotic identification methodologies they may use.
While colorimetric analysis has been a common form of presumptive analysis for many years, especially when dealing with trace amounts (hard to see with the naked eye) of drugs, the questions pertaining to its accuracy and the resulting false convictions put all colorimetric readings, as a standalone narcotic identification process, in the spotlight as indicated by ROAD Testing Act SB 912. The lack of certainty provides defense lawyers with suitable means to raise reasonable doubt. It must be expected that more defense attorneys will challenge the accuracy and reliability of colorimetric readings in court with a potentially corresponding drop in the successful conviction of narcotic dealers.
A more accurate methodology for presumptive analysis is for police officers to utilize an integrated approach. This entails pairing Raman Spectroscopy with colorimetric testing which better enables the accurate identification of narcotics in the field.
The Scientific Working Group for the Analysis of Seized Drugs (SWGDRUG), responsible for developing recommended standards, techniques, protocols, and policies for forensically examining seized narcotics, recognizes Raman Spectroscopy as one of the Class A analytical techniques for conducting presumptive field testing.
Access to immediate presumptive analysis capabilities that reliably and efficiently detects drugs is important for law enforcement officers. They must be able to screen suspected substances and packages, obtain quick and highly accurate results within seconds, and then generate supporting data on the spot. This capability assists officers with their initial investigation, helping to provide probable cause for searches and seizures, and ultimately giving prosecutors the irrefutable information they need to build a case successfully in court.
For officers, minimizing the likelihood of human error while conducting drug tests is crucial in ensuring the accuracy of the results. This is particularly important as traditional testing methods are often time-consuming, and samples are sent to backlogged laboratories already overwhelmed with demands for forensic analysis, leading to significant delays in obtaining verifiable results.
Additionally, accurate identification of narcotics minimizes the risks of interdicted seizures, or suspects arrested and charged, being overturned in a court of law.
What do prosecutors need from law enforcement?
Once an officer has accurately determined the type of narcotic and its volume, they have to move the case to the next stage – prosecution.
To succeed in court, prosecutors need accurate and verifiable data that can be presented as irrefutable evidence. The chain of prosecution and evidence starts at the point where a suspect is stopped and searched within the parameters of the law, and any suspicious substances found are identified as illicit narcotics. The case could be jeopardized if the starting point is questionable, and the officers do not follow set procedures. Accurate presumptive analysis is therefore critical in providing verifiable data supporting an arrest, as is following state law in stopping and searching, or serving a warrant.
The effective development of protocols and training officers to follow the necessary procedures and use of presumptive analysis capabilities optimally, will ensure that defense attorneys cannot question the validity of the tests or the testers. If they possess a recognized certification in using and understanding their devices, that will substantiate their evidence in court.
Nevertheless, even if processes are followed, confirmatory analysis is still required. This requires that the collected evidence is sent to a laboratory for final analysis to prove what substance or substances the suspect was holding. While these laboratory analyses take longer, they must be done to prove the charge and support the investigation and prosecution irrefutably. Reliable presumptive analysis will reduce the false positives labs must deal with, reducing their workload and speeding up the laboratory process.
The criminal justice complex benefits
Legal action against law enforcement officers could potentially increase significantly for arrests and prosecutions based on inaccurate or false positive readings, regardless of the methods employed. Only using a presumptive analysis technique that is accurate and reliable can effectively mitigate their risks and safeguard the reputation of the police department.
Equipping an officer with the ability to carry out presumptive narcotic analysis significantly improves the process of fast, accurate identification and confirmation of questionable substances in the field. It provides invaluable assistance to provide a significant level of probable cause resulting in the officer obtaining a search warrant for additional investigations and arrests, if necessary. Finally, it also improves arrest records among officers and their ability to support their actions in court to obtain convictions.
The criminal justice complex will waste less time, improve conviction rates, and be subject to fewer reprisals for arresting and convicting people without cause. Moreover, it will reduce needless paperwork for cases that are unlikely to succeed. Additionally, officers and first responders will have another layer of protection from accidental exposure to dangerous chemicals such as fentanyl.
As the cartels and various domestic trafficking gangs constantly look to expand their nefarious activities, local, county, state, and federal agencies must be able to confidently remove dealers, and their merchandise from the street.
Irrefutable presumptive analysis capabilities for all officers in the field has now become critical.
About Michael W. Brown
Michael W. Brown is the global director of counter-narcotics technology at Rigaku Analytical Devices. He has a distinguished career spanning more than 32 years as a Special Agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Most recently he was the DEA Headquarters staff coordinator for the Office of Foreign Operations for the Middle East-Europe-Afghanistan-India. Prior to that he served as the country attaché in India and Myanmar providing foreign advisory support for counter narcotic enforcement. He also spent 10 years in Pakistan as a special advisor to the US Embassy on various law enforcement issues. Michael is a graduate of the United States Ranger Training Battalion and has a master’s degree in interdisciplinary technology and management from the University of Eastern Michigan. Contact him at michael.brown@rigaku.com.
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Comments
2024-03-07T08:33-0500 | Comment by: Kent
DemonRats destroying America.
2024-03-07T11:50-0500 | Comment by: Thomas
Fentanyl is easily obtained these days. OD's are a common occurance but people keep their head in the sand. Our children are at HIGH risk but I'm glad we're sending tons of $$$ to Ukraine (sarcasm)