It has become easier over the past few years to be more clandestine about marijuana consumption. Ever since vaporizers emerged onto the scene, providing people with a discreet, mostly odorless alternative to smoking a joint or hitting a bowl in public, more folks, including teens, have been exploring this delivery method as a means for getting high without arousing suspicion.
Well, we’re sad to report that the good ol’ days might have come to an end. It seems that a company has developed a marijuana-testing strip with the ability to almost immediately detect whether the substance is weed or just the run-of-the-mill vape juice. It is a development that is already being embraced by schools and law enforcement.
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A recent report from CBS Denver indicates that these testing strips are similar to the ones used for years in airports to confirm explosive materials. However, with marijuana rising to new heights in popularity, creating situations where people are trying to get stoned in places prohibited under law, Denver-based S2 Detection Technologies got the wise idea of retooling the strips in order to nark out people trying to keep their pot use a secret.
The strips are especially beneficial to teachers who need to determine whether the vape pens their students are hitting contain THC.
In the report, Leigh McGown, principal at Yampah Mountain High School in Glenwood Springs, says before the availability of the testing strips, she often had to put in a call to the local police. But the strips make it easier for her to determine which of the vape pens and other devices that have been confiscated “have marijuana in it,” she explained.
If the substance turns red, it is positive for pot.
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But the testing strips were not redesigned simply to get teenage stoners busted. They can also be used to detect a variety of hard drugs, including opioids, amphetamines and cocaine.
But what about their accuracy?
Similar drug testing kits used for years by law enforcement agencies all across the country have been proven ineffective at turning up accurate results. A report published earlier this year by High Times shows that Colorado cops are sometimes using cheap field testing kits to bust medial marijuana users for cocaine. A 2016 investigation by the New York Times found these kits are extremely unreliable. They are inadmissable in a court of law.
Nevertheless, the creators are these new testing strips claim their product “is ground breaking technology.”
