The latest in technology – drug testing that catches… everyone.

This has been reported in a variety of places already, but is worth noting:

A minister tested positive for cannabis today at a voluntary session designed to show the capability of a high-tech drugs testing machine.
Edwina Hart, Social Justice Minister at the National Assembly for Wales, had not been using drugs, but the result showed that her hands had been cross contaminated with traces of the substance, from door handles, money or other public areas.

She said: “You could pick it up from any where couldn’t you?”

Conservative Assembly Member William Graham, who had arranged for police to demonstrate the drug testing machine at the Assembly, also tested positive for cannabis.

Radley Balko at The Agitator has the best take on this:

This technology is already here in the U.S., and at risk of appearing the Luddite, threatens to make the Fourth Amendment obsolete, or at least more obsolete.

If virtually all of us have traces of some illicit substances on us, then virtually all of us are subject to further searches. Meaning none of us any longer has the the right “to to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause…”