Recent sampling at Washington’s only forensic toxicology laboratory has found more areas contaminated with methamphetamine and cocaine.
The issue raises further skepticism among defense lawyers about the integrity of blood testing being performed at a lab relied upon in thousands of criminal cases and death investigations statewide.
The latest sampling at the Washington State Patrol Toxicology Laboratory detected residual levels of cocaine on five sites and meth on four sites within the lab — mostly ceiling vents and air intake systems, according to a report posted this month. Samples of three additional sites also tested presumptively positive for other drugs. Lab officials, who maintain that blood testing isn’t being compromised by the lab’s background contamination, say the tainted sites detected by the sampling were cleaned last month.
The lab is receiving guidance from a state forensics advisory panel to ensure any required legal disclosures about the contamination issues are made to defendants, according to State Patrol spokesman Captain Neil Weaver.
These latest sampling results come after the tox lab, housed on the third floor of a South Seattle office building, had falsely detected meth in blood samples tested for 11 cases since 2019. The problems surfaced after the lab expanded its operations in March of 2018 across a hallway and into an annex work area where scientists with the State Patrol’s crime lab once had set up makeshift meth labs for training purposes. (Seattle Times)
