Questionable field drug test kits are putting people behind bars when they test postive for drugs.

In April, Janet Goodin of Warroad, Minn., was crossing into Canada for an evening of bingo with her daughters when an officer with the Canadian Border Service conducted a routine search of her van. The officer found an old bottle of motor oil, did a field test and told her that it contained heroin.

"I can't even describe the feeling of amazement," Goodin, 66, said in an interview. "I said, 'That's not possible, it's leftover oil.'"

The bottle was re-tested, and agents said it again revealed the presence of heroin. Goodin was arrested, handcuffed and taken to jail, where she was strip-searched. The motor oil was sent to a Canadian federal laboratory, which eventually determined there was no heroin in it. After 12 days behind bars, Goodin was released.

Goodin's case has been seized upon by critics who question the reliability of field drug-test kits, which are used widely by law enforcement.

"She is what you call collateral damage in the drug war," said former FBI special agent Frederic Whitehurst, a North Carolina attorney and forensic consultant with a Ph.D. in analytic chemistry, who has publicly raised concerns about field drug-test kits. "When you run the tests, you run into all sorts of problems from overzealous cops."

Goodin was actually arrested twice: first by the Border Service, which performed the field test, and then by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), which took over her case from the Border Service.

The Border Service won't explain how they made the mistake.

Field drug-test companies defend their product. Jack Thorndike, a sales and training representative in North Carolina for Nark field drug tests, says that when the tests are properly conducted, they can be used by law enforcement as confirmation of probable cause of illicit drugs. Both Hennepin County and the city of Minneapolis use Nark products, but the Canadian Border Service uses a different brand, Thorndike said.

Field tests are reliable, he said, but they are insufficient evidence for conviction and require follow-up lab tests.


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