Everyone outside the toxicology field seems to believe the forensic toxicology laboratory can identify any drug or compound of interest with a simple push of a button.
Popular belief is that a lab can obtain an unknown sample, analyze it, and have a report printed out – complete with pictures, graphs, chemical structures, and compound identifications – in a matter of minutes.
However, those of us in the field know that the challenges many forensic toxicology labs include: limited resources, increasing demands, emergence of new “designer” drugs, and an increasingly larger number of samples being submitted for analysis.
Toxicology results and scientific evidence are getting more scrutiny than ever before. The criminal justice system increasingly relies on the output of forensic toxicology laboratories to provide evidence relevant to forensic cases, including homicides, sexual assaults, and impaired driving linked to fatalities.
http://www.forensicmag.com/articles.asp?pid=169
Monday, August 10, 2009
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Popular television shows such as CSI and NCIS make toxicology testing seem so easy. These shows are to blame when it comes to the common misconceptions that most of our society has surrounding forensics. I think recent cases have opened our eyes to how intensive these tests are. For example, people expected to know the next day what was to blame for Michael Jackson’s death. It was shocking to find out that these results may take up to 8 weeks. It is amazing that we have machines that are even capable of breaking down samples and allowing us to understand what they are made of. However, these misunderstandings are not necessarily negative. They give us something to work towards. Hopefully one day we will have technology that is instant.
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