FAKE COCAINE

Additional Tests Are Expensive, But Necessary

Cost and delay were the two main reasons the Dallas Police Department and
the district attorney's office stopped running complete tests on all
confiscated drugs seized in pending criminal cases.

The error of that approach has been well documented in the 80 drug cases
dismissed by District Attorney Bill Hill because they are linked to a
series of questionable drug busts.

The price in lost credibility for the Police Department and prosecutor's
office far outweighs the savings gleaned from not fully testing drugs until
cases were ready to go to trial.

Mr. Hill now requires lab tests on all confiscated drugs before he proceeds
with prosecution. The policy should eliminate the embarrassment of any more
cases showing up where the alleged drugs actually are ground gypsum or flour.

County and police officials must meet the challenges of implementing the
new policy. The Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences is overloaded
now that all suspected drugs from busts are being sent in for testing.

The lab, which is getting triple the normal requests for tests, will be
hard pressed to meet an expanded schedule. It already takes from three to
six weeks to deliver results. That could quickly become a problem as police
and prosecutors decide whether to move ahead with criminal cases.

The Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences should be encouraged to
hire additional people to handle a growing workload. If Southwestern is
unable to return results in a timely manner, police officials should seek
additional testing labs.

In the meantime, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is continuing to probe
a breakdown in police narcotics procedures that enabled a paid informant to
set up busts where little or no drugs were involved.

While the probe needs to be thorough, we hope conclusions can be reached
soon so that appropriate corrective measures can be taken.

Testing drugs for authenticity is a critical step to ensure there will be
no repeat of this serious problem. But it is equally important for the FBI
to determine how this happened and who was responsible