Consequences of Mistaken Drug Arrests Revealed

This chapter discusses a first-of-its-kind study conducted at the University of Pennsylvania, which reveals that tens of thousands of Americans are wrongly implicated by field drug tests every year. The study found that nearly half of the 1.5 million drug arrests annually involve these tests, and almost 30,000 arrests are based on false positives. The chapter also highlights the need for secondary laboratory tests to confirm findings, which often do not occur, particularly during nighttime testing.