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Karrius12 t1_jahnoe4 wrote

Reply to comment by jmdunkle in After further testing, Fentanyl was NOT found in the THC gummies that were taken by police last week. by DelianSK13

Sensitive equipment has to be used properly, or else you get false positives.

I want you to think about a dollar bill for a second. Just your average dollar bill.

Chances are, it has some cocaine on it.

That dollar bill has 20,000x the amount of cocaine on it than what the police are claiming they tested on the gummies. 20,000x!

Forensic science, especially in the hands of the cops, is fake more often then not. Real analytical chemists never make the kind of statements those in law enforcement do. We also understand our equipment and detection limits.

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Diarygirl t1_jahsg6c wrote

I blame shows like CSI for people's misunderstanding of this.

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Karrius12 t1_jahy2bt wrote

Absolutely same, but also the way forensic science is abused by the legal system is to blame here, too. So much of it is literally fake

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jmdunkle t1_jahnyok wrote

I'm not eating a dollar bill though

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Karrius12 t1_jahqrb9 wrote

Right, but the point is, that number is so small as to basically be fake. We're talking 1% the weight of a human cell. These kinds of instruments are extremely sensitive, and will ping off of nothing, or noise. Even then - its hard to trust whats actually being detected is fentanyl. A lot of analytical tests simply arent that specific.

It's not that theres some contamination - its that this detection process only pings under extremely specific circumstances that aren't actually happening.

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