Drug detection is on the money

A research team claims they have made life for drug dealers harder by examining the amount of drug contamination in banknotes across the country.

How contaminated is your money?

The Research from the University of Bristol and company Mass Spec Analytical could allow drug dealers to be convicted more easily. Announced at the BA Festival of Science in York, the new findings show that geographical location has no influence on drug contamination of banknotes.

Currently, using highly contaminated banknotes as evidence is not always successful as defendants argue that the notes may have picked up a high degree of drug residue by being in circulation in areas of high drug use.

Gavin Lloyd who led the research at Bristol University said: “We wanted to answer two questions - could there be small localised cash-in-hand economies where the levels of contamination are higher because of a high number of drug users, and could highly contaminated banknotes be found on innocent people living in these areas?”

Almost all banknotes show some previous contact with drugs.  The research group used mass spectrometry to chemically analyse the level of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and ecstasy on each bill.  The samples were taken from a variety of rich, poor, urban and rural areas. They also assessed areas with high and low levels of drug trafficking. 

By using powerful statistical analysis on their results, the group concluded that geographical location has no impact on the distribution patterns of tainted notes. Localised cash-in-hand economies have negligible effect on the distribution of contamination. It is likely that paper money with drug traces are quickly mixed with clean notes in banks and circulation through regional depots eliminates any local regions with a higher percentage of contaminated money.

Leila Sattary