Doctor Kay Lumas has recently published a lengthy doctoral treatise on drug "ion scanners." These are the kinds of gadgets used on visitors to the Pennsylvania and other states' prisons. Dr. Lumas dissertation also deals with the many, many false positive results the scanners produce and the effects of false positive results on the victims. Persons who are fighting the scanners and/or false postitive drug scans may find the new study helpful. Prison administrators and other officials know that the ion scanners are unreliable. To be perfectly certain that Pennsylvania officials are informed, we've mailed a copy of the report to Jeffrey Beard, Pennsylvania's Minister of Misery. Persons who are litigating over the drug gadget or who are otherwise fighting its use might want to printout copies of the lengthy report to share with others including lawyers, legislators or the courts. Persons of color should have an excellent racial discrimination claim. The problem with the ion scanners is that they produce so many false positive results. The report says that "ninety-one persent [91%] of the positive results, on confirmation, would be found to be false." In other words, almost all positive scanner results are false and the prison system knows it!! A person victimized by a false positive test result may be able to sue the prison, the prison system and the manufacturer of the gadget for the legal injury they suffer. A false positive may harm the victim. It may cause the victim psychological distress, financial loss, employment stigma and/or other problems. While the victim may not have grounds for an action for an illegal search, she or he may have grounds for damages flowing from a false positive test result. The study confirms that false "positives can occur with baker's poppy seeds, herbal products, natural body enzymes (i.e., melanin, the natural skin pigment which causes the skin to turn dark can cause false positive for marijuana), and from common medications." In other words, Afro-Americans and some Hispanics and American natives may test positive simply because they are dark! The gadget is racist! The study goes on to say that "there is very little empirical evidence on the efficacy of this technology." In other words, there's no proof that the gadget works and the testing protocol is kept secret by the prisons. They want victims to be ignorant. The study insists that the scanners are useful only as the first part of a two step process, test results must be confirmed by a more reliable and scientific method. The Grievance Committee of the New York prison system concluded that "ion scanners are not valid as the sole basis for excluding a prison visitor because the device can determine neither drug use nor possession." The United States Department of Justice agrees and found that "an innocuous substance such as prescription medications, over-the-counter medications, perfumes, lotions, herbal products, poppy seeds, chlorine baby wipes and gas[oline] fumes can be identified as an illegal narcotic substance." So can foods including the caffeine in coffee, tea and chocolate. Doctor Lumas' study explains that in order to operate even close to correctly, "the equipment must be calibrated with actual drugs (cocaine, amphetamines, marijuana, opiates and PCP) at regular periods" and that "improper maintenance of the equipment can also cause a false-positive reading." A common problem is that "a false reading can also occur when [sic] the paper filter from a previous positive reading is inadvertently used on more than one individual." Like too many scientific papers, Ms Lumas' dissertation is almost painfully dull, prolix, redundant and heavy. While it's very difficult to wade through, it contains nuggets which should be persuasive to courts, lawyers and legislators. Dr. Lumas has kindly allowed us to make her study available for downloading. It's a PDF file of over 250 pages in length, so have plenty of paper in the printer. If you need the PDF reader (you probably don't), it's available free from Adobe. To insure that the Pennsylvania prison system has no excuse for harming prison visitors with false positive scanner tests, we've personally sent a copy of the whole study to the Secretary of Corrections (really, he's the Secretary of Imprisonment, "correction" has nothing to do with it) by snail mail. The Department of Imprisonment is the only state agency which is always at war with the citizens it's supposed to serve. It's the only state agency which actually tries to harm the citizens. If you are harmed in any way by a false positive from the drug sniffing gadgets with trade names Ionsan or Itemiser, we urge you to sue for damages for harm done to you psychologically, emotionally, economically, to your dignity, reputation, employment or otherwise. Neither the prison system or the company can plead ignorance. The gadget is crap and they know it!

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