❓ A WA parliamentary question addresses the potential for roadside drug tests to produce false positives due to compounds found in a South African sunflower, and whether this necessitates changes to drug scheduling. The Minister's response indicates current testing may produce false positives, but no changes to scheduling are planned.
AnsweredQoN 1593Legislative Council
QuestionView source ↗
I refer the Minister to a recent study, highlighted in the May edition of Nature Magazine , which has shown that a fast growing sunflower plant used as a traditional herbal medicine in South Africa produces some of the same compounds found in the cannabis plant, and I ask: (a) would the roadside tests commonly undertaken by the Western Australian Police be able to differentiate between the compounds now shown to be present in helichrysum umbraculigerum, and those detected when the user has consumes cannabis; and (b) of no to (a), given the size of the South African community her in Western Australia, will the Minister now be forced to give sunflowers a category of their own in the schedules that underpin the Misuse of Drugs Act , rather that admit to the potential for false positives?
AnswerView source ↗
Answered
10 October 2023
Responded by
Minister for Emergency Services representing the Minister for Police
Response time
7 days
The Western Australia Police Force advise:
(a) Compounds that have a similar structure to the target compound may produce a positive result if present in sufficient quantities. Ultimately the validity of the presumptive roadside test would be proven during the laboratory confirmatory analysis.
(b) No.
(a) Compounds that have a similar structure to the target compound may produce a positive result if present in sufficient quantities. Ultimately the validity of the presumptive roadside test would be proven during the laboratory confirmatory analysis.
(b) No.
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