These common drug tests lead to tens of thousands of wrongful arrests a year, experts say. One state is fighting back [View all]

Bird poop scraped off a man’s car appeared on a drug test as cocaine. A toddler’s ashes registered as methamphetamine or ecstasy.

And a great-grandmother’s medicine tested positive for cocaine – spawning a 15-month legal nightmare, forcing her to refinance her home, and spurring a new state law that could set a precedent across the country.

Colorado just enacted the nation’s first law banning arrests based solely on the results of colorimetric drug tests – a field test widely used by law enforcement across the country.

The tests are popular because they’re cheap, portable and can screen for drugs in mere minutes. It’s just not feasible to send all suspected drug samples to state laboratories, which would be far more expensive and could take days or weeks to return results.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/common-drug-tests-lead-tens-110055390.html