Each year in the United States, there are approximately 1.5 million drug arrests, with 773,000 of those being attributed to Colorimetric Field Drug Test Kits, or “presumptive field tests.” While these narcotic drug test kits are portable and inexpensive, they often provide unreliable results. These test kits use chemical reagents that react with compounds commonly found in illegal substances; however, these chemical reagents not only react to compounds found in illegal substances, but also to chemical compounds found in legal substances. As a result, false positive test results are not just possible, but an inherent defect of presumptive field tests.
In North Carolina, at least seven law enforcement agencies and 26 correctional facilities currently use these tests. This known unreliability is why results from these tests are intended to be only preliminary; a confirmatory lab analysis is necessary to confirm the field test results. In practice, however, the results from a lab analysis can take months to be returned to the prosecutor's office, and in many instances, prosecutors may offer plea deals and obtain convictions before that analysis ever happens. Arrested individuals may be incentivized to plead guilty to secure their release even knowing that they are being wrongfully convicted. The Wilson Center works to end this practice, starting in our home state of North Carolina.