https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-21/this-handheld-device-detects-opioids-it-s-not-always-right
Fort Wayne’s is among the police departments in 44 states and 50-some countries that have spent about $22,000 a pop for TruNarc, a handheld drug scanner that can detect fentanyl in the field or the lab without direct contact. (Johnston uses it through three layers of plastic.) TruNarc is far from perfect. Because of its price, Johnston can afford only one unit. Besides that, the device’s results are sometimes inconsistent or even wrong. Police say that’s still a lot better than the alternative.
With TruNarc, “we get so many positives, for fentanyl, heroin, meth, cocaine,” Johnston says. “But then we get a lot of inconclusives, where it’s not in the library.” When the device falls short, which can happen a dozen times a week, Johnston sends a report to Thermo Fisher, which evaluates the unknown substance for addition to its database. “Once it is found on the streets of Fort Wayne, we need to be darn sure our library meets the reference standard,” says Thermo Fisher’s Barr.
A recent Marshall University study showed that TruNarc provided consistent results about 84 percent of the time out of 68 samples. In 828 scans, it misidentified substances five times and returned a false positive for fentanyl once. The study’s authors warned that the device will be only as good as its database. The American College of Medical Toxicology and American Academy of Clinical Toxicology said in a July report that officers worried about contact with fentanyl may be just as safe with cheaper precautions such as gloves and masks. Thermo Fisher declined to comment on the study.
The company has powerful advocates. In March, Senator Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, introduced the International Narcotics Trafficking Emergency Response by Detecting Incoming Contraband with Technology Act, or Interdict Act. Markey imagined a dystopian, drug-ravaged future, citing 1,500 fentanyl OD deaths in his home state in 2016 and warning that if the drug hit the rest of the nation as hard, as many as 75,000 Americans might die each year, more than in the entirety of the Vietnam War. He then delivered what’s become his signature line on the issue: “Fentanyl is the Godzilla of opioids.”
Markey’s bill requests millions of dollars to pay for hundreds of small, handheld devices that he says identify fentanyl on the spot. Congress should put such devices in the hands of border officers to stop the fentanyl flow, he says. He never names TruNarc directly, only obliquely describing the device as “something that looks and feels like a Nintendo Game Boy.” Nor does he mention that Thermo Fisher, which has been lobbying to pass his bill, is based in his home state.
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