New Drug Test Can Detect Cocaine in Seconds

A new drug test has been developed that can detect the presence of cocaine from a subject’s fingerprints.

A team of researchers from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have come upon a new way of drug testing that they believe say is both accurate and takes only seconds to get results. And all it takes is a fingerprint on a piece of paper.

It works by combining a person’s fingerprint along with some solvent and a small electrical charge. The result is then placed in a mass spectrometer to find the specific weight of the molecules the person excreted through their skin. This will correspond to the weight of specific things, like cocaine. The researchers involved had determined this test to be 99% accurate, and they plan on expanding its use to other substances as well.

The speed of the test, and its accuracy are two strong selling points for its use. This can be a quick way for doctors and paramedics to determine what is wrong with a patient who is unable to respond, or it could be used for large numbers of patients to confirm they are taking the right amounts of medications, and not abusing them.

Further research needs to be done to verify the claims, and to expand upon drugs that can be tested, but the potential for a rapid, simple drug test is there.