Posted on 07/06/2005 9:57:14 PM PDT by Quick1
Scientists have developed a new weapon for the war on drugs: a novel method for tracing the illicit substances on currency. Study results indicate that the pattern of contamination on money recovered from drug-related crime scenes is significantly different than that seen on notes in regular circulation.
Previous studies had revealed that many bank notes around the world contain trace amounts of cocaine, but contamination with other controlled substances is still relatively rare. In the new work, Karl Ebejer of Mass Spec Analytical Ltd. in Bristol, U.K., and his colleagues analyzed currency using mass spectrometry to look for a fingerprint of the chemical diacetylmorphine (DAM), an active component of heroin. The researchers exposed money recovered in a police raid to high temperatures that cause many compounds to vaporize. The gas was then fed into a mass spectrometer, which separates fragmented chemicals according to mass. Because certain chemicals routinely break into the same fragments, scientists can determine which molecules were present by searching for specific pieces. For example, to identify DAM on the bank notes, the team searched for two particular ions.
The new approach is sensitive enough to allow analysis of single bills, an improvement over other methods that must test entire bundles at once to detect what might be very small amounts of chemicals. Identifying more individual bills that are contaminated reduces the likelihood that a person came into possession of them by chance, the authors argue. "The association doesn't prove guilt," Ebejer cautions, "but cries out for an explanation. If a defendant can offer no reasonable explanation as to why they possess a large quantity of cash and why this cash is highly contaminated with heroin, a jury must draw its own conclusions." The findings appear in the latest issue of the journal Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry. --Sarah Graham
You might be interested in this.
So what happens if a drug dealer spends some money, and it's circulated back?
>Interesting, but the most terrifying statement is bolded by me. If you happen to have cash that is contaminated, you must be guilty!
And not only that, it inverts the presumption of "guilty until proven innocent" making an innocent person responsible for proving his innocence and sending the Fifth Amendment's protection against not having to testify to "prove" your innocence up in flames to boot. It is so wrong. The government has to prove you are guilty, you shouldn't have to prove your innocence.
I guess this means we will all have to launder our money.
Sorry, couldn't resist!
It's the usual WOD Gestapo mentality. After all, if you have nothing to hide, what are you worried about?
If they test it for urine, the results would sicken most people.
...terrifying ?
Quite the drama queen you is.
Not as much as a test for feces, I would guess...
This reminds me of an dated (Cold War era) joke my youngest son is fond of:
(spoken with a thick Russian accent) "In America, money is paper with tiny amounts of cocaine. In Soviet Russia, money does not exist."
(Sophomoric, for sure, but he's a high school sophomore.)
They do not have to charge you with a crime to take your 'contaminated' money. They've been doing this for years with cocaine. This just adds another drug to the game.
...
Mobsters may be using biotechnology to give new meaning to the phrase dirty money, fear FBI agents investigating a suspected drugs operation in Pennsylvania. Detectives are awaiting laboratory test results on a $250,000 stash of banknotes seized from a car in Philadelphia this month after two police officers who made the arrest became ill.
One required hospital treatment after breaking into a sealed plastic bag to count the money, thought to be the proceeds from a drugs deal involving the Russian mob. Crime experts are concerned gangsters have found a novel way of protecting cash during transit by coating it with bacteria.
http://www.arkhospitals.org/snow%2002-24-05.html
*Now that is some DIRTY money!
This bothers me as well. Then I realize it will be a long time before I have more than a twenty in my wallet.
How did the smugglers propose to rid the money of germs once it had reached its intended destination?
If a defendant can offer no reasonable explanation as to why they possess a large quantity of cash and why this cash is highly contaminated with heroin, a jury must draw its own conclusions."
They do not have to charge you with a crime to take your 'contaminated' money.
Maybe put it in the oven and bake it for a while.
I guess we all need to prepare for that knock on the door since some of our currency is "probable cause".
You probably wouldn't be charged with a crime, but your cash would be gone. Nothing new here. It's been going on for at least a decade. Check out Volusia County, Florida and St. Martens Parish, LA. I've read stories about both in recent years where they are siezing large quantities of money they find in routine traffic stops, but no crime was ever charged. They cite cocaine residue on the money as the reason. Undoubtedly it is happening elsewhere.
The problem is the Treasury Department says that roughly 80% of the $20's, $50's and $100's in circulation have cocaine residue on them........
Just because you have a large amount of cash on you doesn't mean you are a drug dealer. Typical WOD/prohibition hysteria.....
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