An unbelievable amount of people each year are put in jail because of results made by a two dollar roadside drug test and there has been sufficient evidence that shows these tests are known to create a false positive effect. With that being said, why are law enforcements still using them?
After a lengthy road trip, Amy Albritton and her boyfriend Anthony Wilson drove from their motel to find the closest fast food stop for dinner to cure their appetite. Before they could drive any farther a local police officer pulls them over. When asking for Wilson’s license he responded that he did not have it on him and the registration was under Albritton. The officer asked Wilson to step out of the car and he listened.
Officer David Helms asked Albritton for permission to search the car because he had seen a “needle in the car’s ceiling lining.” Albritton agreed because she had no idea what the officer was talking about and had nothing to hide. Helms found a white crumb on the floor of the car believing that it was in fact crack cocaine.
Helms went to the back of his car he pulled out a small plastic container that had a vial of pink liquid. He dropped a tiny piece of the crumb or “cocaine” into the liquid. If the liquid stayed the color pink, that would rule out any presence of cocaine. If it turned blue on the other hand, then Albritton, as the owner of the car, could become a felony defendant.
The liquid turned blue and the two lovebirds were taken into custody.
Albritton was told to plead guilty
simply because it would mean less jail time for her. She refused, she told everyone of her innocence but no one wanted to listen because the test came back positive.
There are no established error rates for the field tests, in part because their accuracy varies so widely depending on who is using them and how. In Las Vegas, authorities re-examined a sampling of cocaine field tests conducted between 2010 and 2013 and found that 33 percent of them were false positives.
Police officers arrest more than 1.2 million people a year in the United States on charges of illegal drug possession. Field tests like the one Officer Helms used in front of Amy Albritton help them move quickly from suspicion to conviction. But the kits which cost about $2 each and have changed little since 1973, are far from reliable.
So, why are these tests still considered valid when they should not be used for evidential purposes?