Fingerprint analysis tech aims to revolutionize drug testing

[Playinghardball]

Source: Raw Story

A new technology that analyzes the sweat from a person's fingertips looks to revolutionize the drug testing market, providing on-site results in minutes with a test so advanced it can even detect marijuana intoxication.

Using gold nanoparticles and special antibodies, the tech produced by British firm Intelligent Fingerprinting latches on to metabolites on the fingerprint and turns a specific color depending on which drug byproducts are detected.

While it can be configured to search for drugs like nicotine, methadone and cocaine, it also presents another innovation: helping to determine if someone is actively intoxicated on marijuana.

Marijuana's psychoactive ingredient is fat soluble, so it stays in the body for weeks locked in fat cells. This means that traditional drug testing using urine analysis can detect whether a person has used marijuana up to a month afterwards, but it doesn't actually reveal if the person was intoxicated at the time the test was taken.

More at: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/07/26/fingerprint-analysis-aims-to-revolutionize-drug-testing/

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Gonna bust some more potheads....

[Incitatus]

1. This device could destroy the only argument some people here say they have against making it legal

and that is that driver's can't be tested for marijuana intoxication.

[nebenaube]

3. That's about the only thing good about it...

Now imagine the test is configured for nicotine and labeled for pot.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. as a pothead, I'm all for it.

An accurate test for sobriety/or not would be a better alternative than what they use now.