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A new test can tell from your fingerprint if you’ve taken drugs

A new test can tell if a person has taken cocaine, simply by taking a fingerprint.

The research, published in the journal Analyst, comes from teams in the UK and Netherlands and can differentiate as to whether someone has ingested or handled the drug.

Researchers used different types of an analytical chemistry technique known as mass spectrometry to analyse the fingerprints of patients attending drug treatment services. They tested these prints against more commonly used saliva samples to determine whether the two tests correlated.