Forensics Journal - Stevenson University 2012 | Page 19

FORENSICS JOURNAL

Drug Enforcement Administration. (2010, May). Maryland state fact
sheets [fact sheet]. Retrieved September 10, 2010, from http://www.
justice.gov/dea/pubs/states/dc.html

cies which include safety and legal considerations, evidence control,
substance overviews, field testing procedures, report writing and
courtroom testimony, as well as, written exams an officer is required
to pass in order to become certified (Sylvester, 2009, p.7).

Dutch, P. H. (1973). U.S. Patent No. 3,748,098. Washington, DC:
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Police officers performing field drug tests can eliminate the need for
small amounts of narcotics to be sent to the laboratory. Other samples
may be sent to the lab for complete analysis if the police officer thinks
the test produced a false negative, or an ambiguous presumptive
result. The laboratory, no longer tasked by small cases, would have
more time to work on complex felony cases until the analysis was
required for trial,