Drug wipe test

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Drug wipe test drugwipe

A drug wipe test is an easy-to-use procedure to test people for the use of drugs or contact with them. The test is used as a rapid drug test for customs checks , traffic checks by the police , the armed forces , the federal police , in prisons , but also in schools and private companies worldwide.

execution

The tongue is sampled in the saliva test, which is now the most common test form. During the sweat test, the sampler is wiped over the forehead of the person to be tested. If both the control line and the test line turn red, the drug test is positive, that is, drugs were consumed. There are individual tests specifically for one drug each. Multiple tests are mostly used for the simultaneous detection of cannabis , amphetamines , cocaine , opiates , methadone or benzodiazepines . The test line shows which type of drug was detected. It is also possible to detect traces of drugs on the palms of the hands in order to reliably identify contact with or trade in certain substances.

functionality

It is an immunological test procedure ( immunoassay ). There are antibodies on the strip that are highly specific only to components of the different types of drugs. If these components are in the sweat or saliva of the test person, the color reaction described above takes place and red lines become visible. The common basic principle of the recognition and thus the detection of an analyte is the binding of an antigen to an antibody ( lock and key principle ). Numerous field tests document that this sensitive detection principle works for drug tests.

reliability

Drug wipe tests have been used in many countries around the world for over 15 years. There is therefore a great deal of practical knowledge as well as numerous studies on reliability. The following are some results from the relevant forensic and toxicological research in recent years, all of which have been published in established magazines.

In the EU project DRUID (Driving Under the Influence of Drugs), police officers and scientists from 36 institutes and 18 countries evaluated the most widely used drug wipe tests for saliva. The intensive studies from 2006 to 2009 were able to show that the tests used can achieve sensitivity, specificity and reliability ( assessment of a classifier ) with values ​​well above 90%. However, there are also critical results and reliability values ​​from individual manufacturers only in the range of 70 to 85%.

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