Erie County Sheriff Hires Unproven Drug Testers: Investigative Post

The Erie County Legislature approved a grant to purchase drug testers that are inadmissible in court, in part because they are often inaccurate.

Erie County Sheriff John Garcia. Photo by Garrett Looker.

The Erie County Sheriff's Office plans to acquire equipment to detect whether motorists are under the influence of drugs, even if the results are not admissible in court due to accuracy issues.

The purchase of five SoToxa drug analyzers at a cost of $26,000 would be funded by a $2.9 million state grant unanimously approved last week by the county Legislature, without debate or discussion. The money would also fund surveillance cameras, drones, license plate readers and mobile X-ray equipment designed to capture images of vehicles that would be deployed at all mass gatherings.

Civil liberties advocates voice concerns on x-ray equipment and other monitoring equipment. Legislator Howard Johnson, who chairs the Legislature's Public Safety Committee, said he is confident the sheriff's office will not break any laws with the new technology.

“I just think these are just tools that are going to enhance their toolbox and give them the opportunity to do some unique things that they probably haven't had the opportunity to do before,” Johnson told Investigative Post. After the legislature approved the purchases.

Looking a bit like the brick cell phones of the 1980s, SoToxa analyzers are designed to detect the presence of six types of drugs – amphetamines, methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana, benzodiazepines and opioids – in saliva after a suspect passes a disposable cartridge into their mouth.

Neither the sheriff's office nor any other law enforcement agency has consulted with prosecutors about the use of roadside saliva tests to detect drugs, according to Kait Munro, a spokeswoman for the Acting Erie County Prosecutor Michael Keane.

New York State Police are experimenting with saliva testing, but not with traffic enforcement equipment like SoToxa. Instead, the samples are sent to a laboratory for analysis, Beau Duffy, a state police spokesman, wrote in an email.

Police in at least 10 states use SoToxa analyzers, but the results are not admissible in any U.S. court due to accuracy concerns.

In Michigan, researchers who compared SoToxa results with blood tests, which can be used in court, found that the results from the devices were wrong more than 23 percent of the time, according to 2021 Report in the Michigan State Legislature.

False positives ranged from 65 percent of opioids reported by SoToxa to 5 percent of marijuana positives. False negatives were also a problem. Thirty percent of cannabis samples tested negative by SoToxa analyzers tested positive in blood tests.

Michigan State Police blamed the problems on timing, according to media reports. By the time blood is drawn from a suspect who took a roadside saliva test, the drugs may be gone from his system, police said, and the drugs may break down and disappear from the blood samples before the test.

Wisconsin researchers who took blood samples at the same time as SoToxa analyzers collected saliva from 106 suspected drugged drivers reported accuracy rates greater than 90 percent for opioids, amphetamines, methamphetamine, benzodiazepines and cocaine, according to their study. Research Paper 2022. The researchers wrote that SoToxa cannot detect fentanyl.

Wisconsin researchers cautioned that the number of motorists who participated in the study was only a fraction of the number arrested on suspicion of drug driving, while also noting accuracy issues and failure to detect fentanyl . They nevertheless concluded that roadside saliva tests could be useful.

“Despite these limitations, the SoToxa instrument may be useful in helping law enforcement identify individuals driving under the influence of drugs and establish probable cause at the roadside to make DUI arrests. impaired,” the researchers wrote.

Canadian police also use SoToxa analyzers, although two of these devices, then called Alere DDS2 analyzers, only recorded positive results, notably when tests were carried out on police officers during an investigation. 11-week trial in 2016 and 2017.

SoToxa did not respond to a request for comment.

In an email, Christopher Horvatits, spokesperson for Erie County Sheriff John Garcia compared the SoToxa devices to the preliminary breathalyzer tests (PBTs) that police have used for more than 20 years to detect alcohol.

PBT results are not admissible in court because they are not considered accurate enough. However, police officers across the country use them to determine whether drivers are impaired.

Deputies will still need additional evidence beyond the SoToxa results, such as citizen complaints, blood draws and performance on field sobriety tests, Horvatits wrote.

“Submission to these screening devices is voluntary and there is no penalty for refusal,” Horvatits wrote.

Just say “no,” some defense attorneys say.

“Since the test should have no scientific value, there is no reason to do it,” Buffalo criminal defense attorney Herb Greenman wrote in an email. “However, officers will likely view a refusal as a virtual admission of drug use.”

published 2 minutes ago – June 25, 2024