Innocent Mom Jailed for 5 Months As Cops Mistake Vitamins for Opioids
Tampa, FL — Rebecca Shaw, a mother of four who has never been in trouble with the law before, ended up spending five months in jail because a field drug test falsely identified her vitamins as opiates.
One night, Rebecca’s car ran out of gas and she was stranded on the side of the road. When an officer pulled up behind her she was hoping that she would get some help. However, instead, he asked to search her car.
Not thinking that she was doing anything wrong, Rebecca allowed him to search her car, and when he did, he found vitamins and accused her of having oxycodone.
“He said, ‘They don’t look like vitamins. They look like oxycodone,’” Rebecca told Fox13.
The officer immediately ran a field drug test on the pills that he found and got a positive reading for opiates.
Rebecca became one of many women and men to suffer horrific fates at the hands of negligent cops and their continued use of faulty field drug test kits.
In fact, tens of thousands have been convicted and served time — even earning the black mark of a felony — for crimes they likely didn’t commit, according to a report, because the cases against them relied on horribly unreliable field drug test kits.
So prone to errors are the tests, courts won’t allow their submission as evidence. However, their continued use by law enforcement — coupled with a 90 percent rate at which drug cases are resolved through equally dubious plea deals — needlessly ruins thousands of lives.
Rebecca Shaw is one of these people.
“My heart just sank. I said, ‘That’s wrong!’ It felt like my whole life was over. It was terrible,” she said.
Rebecca was arrested and charged with trafficking oxycodone, and since she was unable to pay the $5,000 bond she was forced to sit in jail for months.
“My kids were devastated. I was away for five months. I cried constantly. It was scary being in there and having a public defender that didn’t believe me,” Rebecca said.
After Rebecca’s husband was able to raise the funds to bail her out, she said to wait another seven months for the official test results to come back from the lab, which ultimately determined that the pills were vitamins and not oxycodone.
“They’re putting innocent people in jail and ruining people’s lives,” Rebecca said, adding that she was considering a lawsuit.
Sadly, Rebecca’s story is extremely common and happens every day throughout the US. The standard $2 field drug test, manufactured by The Safariland Group, have been proven to be unreliable. And according to the manufacturer, should not be used as a stand-alone test for convictions related to drug possession.
Studies have shown how everyday foods, spices, and medicine tested positive in field drug tests. In one experiment, scientists even discovered that air could set off false positive for these tests.
According to Forensic Resources:
“The director of a lab recognized by the International Association of Chiefs of Police for forensic science excellence has called field drug testing kits “totally useless” due to the possibility of false positives. In laboratory experiments, at least two brands of field testing kits have been shown to produce false positives in tests of Mucinex, chocolate, aspirin, chocolate, and oregano.”
Dr. Frederic Whitehurst, a Ph.D. chemist and former FBI lab supervisor, has also voiced objections, saying that he has “no confidence at all in those test kits.”
According to the national litigation and public policy organization, the Innocence Project, at any given time there are an estimated 40,000 to 100,000 innocent people currently locked in a cage in U.S. prisons.
Over the years, The Free Thought Project has reported on countless stories of odd things creating false positives in field drug tests. We have seen people put behind bars for possession of things like drywall, glazed donuts, crackers, kitty litter and baking soda.
A post on steemit this week by @doitvoluntarily showed some of the most recent instances of false positives from field tests.
I wrote this on my blog @ The Free Thought Project
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:
My name is John Vibes and I am an author and researcher who organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference. I write for numerous alternative media websites, including The Free Thought Project @tftproject and The Mind Unleashed. In addition to my first book, Alchemy of the Timeless Renaissance, I have also co-authored three books with Derrick Broze @dbroze : The Conscious Resistance: Reflections on Anarchy and Spirituality, Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion and Manifesto of the Free Humans
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I'm of the belief that these kits are designed to give these false positives. I don't have any direct evidence but, red light cameras & the shortening of the yellow light in the cycle in order to issue more tickets which then generates revenue provides some circumstantial evidence. They have a giant prison industrial complex to sustain. Lot's of jobs on the line here. It's going to take a lot of arrests to keep 'em all fed. Snatching up the innocent is just a part in the cost of doing business. The drug war is crazy & it must end. The drug war is a crime against humanity.
Does this resonate at all with your church?
I'm only interested in the TRUTH. I care not who it does or doesn't resonate with. It seems as though the church, as a whole, is starved for TRUTH. The famine of Amos 8:11 is on my friend.
I care who it resonates with. Christianity is NOT a theology for "lone wolf" men. And yes, the "church as a whole" is a complete mess... at least here in prideful America. But I was asking if you are part of a church which features men equally interested in His Truth. ...and perhaps featuring a pastor who leads in that direction.
Mainstream religion is a very corrupt thing as I believe all of us here recognize, but I do not believe that says something bad about christianity itself. I am personally not a christian, I am a very woo-woo "explorative agnostic" as I like to say.
However, I do believe there are many good christians out there who are on our side. In my book with derrick "Reflections on Anarchy and Spirituality" we talked about the history of anarchism and christianity. For example, discussed how groups like quakers refused to go along with slavery, and refuse to call people by names of status "your honor, your majesty etc"
There are many people who came to anarchism through christianity, because they realized that was the true message of jesus
Where in the NT does anyone report on Jesus ever violating, or advocating the violation of NAP? I truly laugh at these evanJellyfish who pound the pavement for Prohibitions! In reality, the only argument amongst Christians is: Crusader, Amish or Puritan?; pick one. Whereas even the Crusader types go in with a Bible but are willing to fight to the death to preserve a Right to promote His Church. Admittedly, they walk the tight rope when it comes to Trespass! The Puritans rather "fortress" and not worry so much about propagating. The Amish? Well, they speak for themselves (as do the Quakers and Mennonites).
https://www.anarchochristian.com/
An to think this happened in a developed society.
A "developed society" is actually the only assembly where this sort of racket could take place. The reliance on technology the "people" have come to be addicted to, allows for this sort of frame-up.
Hmmm I get your point. I hope this will serve as a reminder that we should double check computer generated results before passing judgement.
yeah... ESPECIALLY ballot counts in elections. It is getting a bit overwhelming for humans in our attempt to "contain" the state, no less shrink it. Kokesh has it right. GET RID OF IT. It's cancer. Plain and simple. And time is running out in America where we can still do this peacefully.
I know this appears repetitive. But some things can't be offered enough... at least until I see others pounding it out there as hard as I am!
This is the stuff that makes me angry, the US needs to get all these inefficiencies out of the so called justice system. @johnvibes
Another travesty in the name of the so-called and immensely stupid "war on drugs." (Thanks, Reagan.) They wouldn't mistake my vitamins for opiods, because my vitamins are gummies. I've only ever taken opiods right after surgery, anyway, and they were prescribed....though I am concerned doctors are going to become wary of prescribing them at all in this current political climate, and what are people recovering from surgery supposed to do for pain? Believe me, when you've had a joint replaced, Tylenol just doesn't do it.
When I had to have a drug test before starting work as a teacher back in the late 1990's, I was advised to not eat poppyseeds in the week or two before the test, because poppyseeds may show up on the test as opium. It's crazy.
Eyyah, it's quite unfortunate
This your ''Eyyah" sounds like a fellow Nigerian. Lol
she was stranded on the side of the road
These are cases poorly handled. Rebecca should sue them not considering. Been taken away from her children for that long is no joke. This is sad cos it happens to others we don't know of. Thank goodness, she is free now. Her story will keep officers in proper check before raising any suspicion
I think its an innory of fact bro....But in tht recent time no one cnt get their right justice.... In tht case, the innocent people r trapped..
U should get the rght justice becoze why u jailed becoz u dnt do anything...????
Thank u.. we all r with u...dnt be upset...😃😃😃✌✌✌✌
Drywall and even air quality can get you in the slammer?! That's horrible! Is there any initiatives to switch manufacturers or even incentivize the current one to produce better field tests?
At the very least the people wrongfully put in jail should be compensated by the amount of their bond directly from the manufacturer so they can feel some consequence as this is wasting the time of the court system and the accused.
Why didn't she have a lawyer? No one with a lawyer would be there for 5 months for a false positive. Of course these test kits have false positives but think about the alternative. In the alternative the cop would have said they were OxyContin and then arrested he for it. Without the field tests they would just arrest everyone, with the tests they can let some people go. Getting rid of the tests would not result in any fewer arrests, it would result in more.
She could only afford a public defender from what I understand, and they work for the state so they cant be trusted.
The point is that that there shouldnt be field tests and there shouldnt be drug prohibition. I see the flimsy tests as another case against the drug war entirely, these cops shouldnt even have the right to search peoples cars in the first place.
Public defenders usually suck just because they are not very good lawyers and are not well paid. Good lawyers don't mess with being prosecutors or public defenders, not when they can make hundreds of dollars an hour in private practice.
So if there were no field tests do you imagine they would just let people go when they find suspicious pills or powders?
Obviously not, they would arrest all of them, with the field tests they can let some people go.
she gave them permission.
Of course the problem is prohibition, doing away with field tests won't fix that, it can only result in more people being arrested who should not be.
I watch live PD, those tests keep people from being arrested all the time. I saw a funny one recently where the kid had a little baggie of sea salt in his wallet or pocket, they were able to test it and determine it was not drugs so he didn't get in trouble for that.
sadly most soccer moms out there are dumb enough to trust the cops and consent to a search lol
most people think they are required to allow cops to search just by them asking
Even in cases where people refuse they many times go ahead and search anywway...but the point still remains, going around searching people should not on their agenda at all..whether they ask or not
Ignorance of the law is no defense.
But in cases where you refuse and are searched anyways it is easy to beat the case. As long as drugs are prohibited they will have an agenda of finding them during traffic stops. We don't have protection from any and all searches, we have protection from unreasonable searches.
I feel like your missing a much larger & far more important point in all of this. Cops are criminal coward enforcers for fictitious "law" dreamed up by a kakistocracy of people who have no more of a claim to your property or life than you do. If you are not damaging someone, their property or defaulting on a consensual contract then you are not a criminal & it's no one's business what you have or what you're doing. It's the cops & their corporate masters in the halls of "government" that are in the wrong here. The war on drugs is a crime against humanity...a war crime. The Perpetrators should answer for their crimes. The false belief in conscripted authority is another crime against the inhabitants of this planet. There's much more to say on this but, I'll have to leave it there for now. I hoped this helped.
I am not sure what led you to believe I supported the prohibition of drugs. The cops don't make the law, change the law and make drugs and guns legal for everyone and then they would never have need to search anyone who was not a murderer, thief, rapist or what have you. Then we would need a lot fewer cops and there would be far fewer bad cops and much less harassment. If a young black man can have a bag of weed in his car and a pistol then the cops don't really have a reason to bother him in most cases. Do you ever watch Live PD?
I don't want to watch the crimes of the cowardly police. I have no interest in seeing the subjugation & victimizing of my brothers & sisters. It hurts me when I've seen those types of shows in passing. "Far fewer cops"...there should be 0, that's zero, cops. All order followers must be shamed for their pretending to abdicate their personal responsibility for their actions. That is evil & they're acting like dogs..that's what their masters call them anyway. You're justifying the whore-able actions of the police as if their just doing their jobs. That gave me the feeling of you being sympathetic to the prohibition..sorry.