Pubdate: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 Source: Huntsville Times (AL) Copyright: 2003 The Huntsville Times Contact: http://www.htimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/730 Author: Patricia C. Stumb, Times Staff Writer Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/af.htm (Asset Forfeiture) DRUG-TAINTED CASH DEBATE UNSETTLED Times' Sampling Finds Money Clean, But Result Challenged By Expert To test the widely circulated theory that 80 percent or more of all cash bears trace amounts of cocaine, The Huntsville Times did its own survey. With a twist. We asked upstanding citizens to take part. What better way to show how the drug culture is tied to cash. Some people - mostly elected officials - refused. They didn't want their names tied to drug money, no matter the premise of the experiment. So we kept asking. Finally, an accountant, an attorney, a rabbi, an assistant principal, a businessman, a doctor, a newspaper publisher, a college dean and a Presbyterian minister agreed to swap $20 bills with us to be tested for cocaine residue. The bills were placed in individual envelopes with the participant's name and the bills' serial number written on the outside. After all, wouldn't it show just how deeply drugs have penetrated society if such well-respected folks were walking around with drug-tainted cash in their pockets? But a funny thing happened. When John Kilbourn of Analytical & Forensic Associates Inc. of Huntsville completed his tests, he mailed a written report we weren't expecting. "Analysis for cocaine was negative on each of the twenty-dollar bills." So the next step in the experiment involved one question with a gamut of possible answers: "Why?" Short-Term Residue Sgt. Jim Winn, commander of the Huntsville-Madison County Strategic Counterdrug Team, said he knew what the outcome of such a test would be even before he knew we were running the experiment. "You should've called me first," Winn said. "I could've saved you the trouble." Winn believes 80 percent of cash might be tainted with cocaine at some point of its life, but the measurable residue doesn't hang around long. "That would be our argument in court," Winn said. "The scent that a drug dog hits on dissipates quickly. So your test is not indicative of whether or not the money you examined has ever been touched by a dealer or a user. "Some people argue that if a drug-detecting canine hits on money, it doesn't really mean that the cash was recently handled by dealers, that all money has residue on it. I don't buy that." Dr. Jim Woodford does buy it. He's dedicated much of his career to spreading the results of studies done in the late 1980s that yielded the 80 percent statistic. He's testified in courts across the country that drug residue on cash does not a dealer make. He's published papers on the subject, and he's conducted drug experiments across the globe, including at Britain's Scotland Yard. "Also, please take note that I was qualified as an expert chemist by (the late) Judge Frank M. Johnson before he went to the FBI," Woodford said, invoking the name of one of Alabama's most esteemed federal judges. With credentials firmly established, Woodford shared his thoughts on why The Times' experiment went so dramatically different than expected: Maybe the samples weren't properly gathered. Maybe the bills were new - especially if they'd recently come from an ATM - and hadn't been circulated enough. (The U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing says a $20 bill has a life expectancy of two years.) Maybe the experiments weren't rigorous enough. Maybe if tests were run for marijuana, methamphetamine (better known as crystal meth or crank), PCP and heroin, a positive identification would've been made since those drugs are just as popular - or more so - than cocaine. Maybe the story idea was planted by people - say, the government - who want to retain the right to seize cash that drug dogs hit on, even if there's no other evidence to suggest the suspect has any drug connection. "I've seen it happen before," said Woodford, who lives on Lookout Mountain but handles much of his forensic chemist work out of an office in Atlanta. "A newspaper will write a story saying their study showed no drug residue. Then when I go in to testify that almost all cash has residue, the government pulls out the story saying that I'm wrong, to try and prove that I'm an idiot. One little newspaper study can neutralize a lot of research and reset the counter to zero. "It's a very hot issue in the government right now. A lot of people in Alabama want to disprove that there's drugs on money. I have different theories than the state does. "Mine are based on science." Source of Story So, why do the experiment? Did the government, indeed, plant the story idea, and we took the bait? The idea came from a Web site run by the nonprofit Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank in St. Petersburg, Fla. "But who told the Poynter Institute to run that as a story idea?" Woodford asked, not relinquishing the conspiracy theory. Al Tompkins, the online leader at Poynter, posted the story idea. He said it wasn't suggested by the federal government; many television stations and newspapers have done the story over the years, and he reintroduced the idea when a new design for the $20 bill was being discussed. "That's laughable," Tompkins said Friday of Woodford's conspiracy theory. "As to why your results came out different, I don't know. Maybe the testing was bad. Maybe your money was too new. "Your results are abberational." Woodford said, most likely, the testing done on the bills wasn't sufficient, hence the unexpected results. Because Kilbourn was using a gas chromatograph - in which the bills are bathed in methanol, which is evaporated to a small volume and analyzed - Woodford said the test ran only to parts per million. He called that test "low science." Kilbourn said the test detects "very, very, very minute quantities." "If he'd used a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometry, he could've taken it to parts per billion," Woodford said. "That's really a minute amount. That's the amount that dogs work on." The chemist has been working in the field for a while. In 1979, he secured U.S. Patent No. 4,260,517, which formulated the guidelines used to train U.S. Customs dogs. He feels comfortable saying he knows what he's talking about when he says the government is seizing and keeping money that doesn't belong to it. "Maybe you just sold your houseboat, and you've got $16,000 in your pocket," he said. "A police officer stops you because you went across the yellow line. The dog alerts on the money, the cops take your money, and you'll spend a lot more than $16,000 trying to get it back. "This kind of thing happens all the time." Woodford had one more theory as to why there was no cocaine detected on the $20 bills. "Maybe in Huntsville, the war on drugs has been won," he said. "Hurray. You won. But as for me, I'm still a little suspicious." - --- MAP posted-by: Jackl