China produces faster, portable drug test kit

Scientists from east China's Anhui Province have produced a portable drug toolkit capable of testing and recognizing various drugs in urine within two minutes.

Using Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS), the new drug toolkit is faster and easier to use than those commonly used by law enforcers, said a researcher from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, on Tuesday.

Currently, police tend to use two techniques. "However, the professional equipment is costly and it takes time to interpret the the results, while test paper is faster but less accurate," he said.

The kit uses only two reagents and can tell whether a person has been using drugs, as well as identify which of drugs, in minutes.

China had 2.95 million registered drug addicts at the end of 2014, but the real number who have used narcotics is thought to exceed 14 million. Drug-related crime has become more complex in the past few years, as the sources and types of drugs have become more diverse. Endi