I sometimes watch TV talk shows (don’t judge me! I need something on to help keep track of time and since I get antenna TV my choices are very limited), and lie detectors get me all the time, they puff up how perfect the tests are. And in at least a couple, they get the lie detector guy out there from time to time and he’s always got this slimy used-car-salesman look to him while quoting statistics about how polygraphs are 99.9% accurate (sometimes he tips his hand by saying “according to studies by the American Polygraph Association.” or something like that). Maybe the “slimy car-salesman” thing is unfair (to car-salespeople, if nothing else!), but still, I’m trusting Wikipedia more than I trust him. And yet they test real people in front of an audience of millions about things that can affect their entire lives, and everyone takes the results as gospel! (Even if 99% accurate, out of every 100 people they test for, say, child abuse, is wrongly exonerated or implicated. And the paradox of the false positive could make the numbers much higher in some cases.)
I’m not an idiot. They certainly got possession of some for the demo, but I was speculating about their ability to conduct something more rigorous.
Well of course, why do you think cops love them so much. It’s like the drug-sniffing dogs that can be surreptitiously prodded into “alerting” for drugs.
What you can’t beat is GC-MS. If it’s organic and a drug that has been made illegal, we know what it looks like in GC-MS. Unless it’s verified by gas chromatography, in my mind, it doesn’t really count. I haven’t evaluated any drug test-strip/kit, but I can tell you that among other things: colorimetric test kits have expiration dates.
It doesn’t surprise that some of the kits on the market react to odd random substances. Often they’re designed to bond to a specific region in a molecule, something electron rich that might trigger a color change reaction. I’d actually be very interested to see what false positives you get as you vary the temperature. Some reactions that are thermodynamically favored might only happen when it snows outside. Of course, as someone who might benefit from a boom in people sending stuff off to the lab for express results, I have to say that I’m very much against test kits. 
What about portable GC-MS devices?
http://www.edie.net/news/0/New-portable-GC-MS-technology-for-onsite-lab-analysis/24893/
You still need someone who is competent to read the data. I don’t imagine most cops are comfortable deciphering MS fragmentation patterns. Also, check out the price tag. No way they’re getting one for every cop car.
But, then again, we are talking bottomless pit drug-enforcement money. I’m sure the feds will happily send our tax-dollars along to local municipalities to get GC-MS for cops, while slashing funding to the local college that has a non-portable one that keeps breaking down, from the 90s.
Attach a cellphone, send data to where the expert is.
Make them in volume and the price goes down.
Let’s hope that such demand at least brings the volume supply and competition and lowers the costs… More labs need affordable GC-MS rigs, including my own one. (What keeps breaking on yours? Where are the weak spots?)
Mine? I’m an undergrad, but my university doesn’t seem to have that problem. We’re a tad spoiled. I’m actually thinking of less well-endowed institutions.
That’s fine by me. As long as chemists get paid and the job market is less competitive, it’s all good. I’m very interested in public science education, and I used to hate that people tended to respond to my chosen career path with, “Ew! I hated chemistry.” Somewhere along the line, I realized that the less popular an essential field is, the better it is economically for people who work in that field.
I repaired a GCMS rig once. Doesn’t count fully as GCMS repair per se, as it involved the control computer that needed a windows reinstallation. Involved sneakernetting the OS (Windows 3.11?) across two or three floors using just three floppies, me in an internship, and a “if you get it running you can see how it works” offer.
I just feel sad for them. Such vast areas of wonders and fun and they so eagerly give it up.
…the part that irks me is that I have few people to talk with about the fun things… but that makes me hate (well, being bitter towards, rather than outright aggression-based hate) the society as a whole, not the individuals.
I see how that can sweeten the deal. 
Amateurs!
I think that guy is going to have trouble getting all 10 cc into that mouses head!
Get a mouse with a bigger head.
Feel sad, but mostly about the state of public high school science education. People don’t hate chemistry, they hate what little they remember of their ninth grade chemistry class. Kids with a natural aptitude can see past a boring teacher because the material itself is inherently fascinating to them, but the rest aren’t so lucky.
(Mine was fantastic, I still remember the little solo skit she did to explain covalent bonds. It involved a watchchain-swinging zoot-suiter meeting a cheap floozy.)
(ETA They put the kibosh on the indoor hydrogen balloon explosion the year before mine.)
I’m not at all surprised to hear the air in Florida tests positive for meth.
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