The landscape of controlled substance analysis is changing with compact mass spectrometers. No longer do the samples need to go to the lab, but now the lab can go to the samples. With the growing risk of exposure to fentanyl and its analogues, there is a need in law enforcement and decontamination services for analysis that is fast, dependable and can be operated with little to no training. Law enforcement agencies have been using chemical field tests as a presumptive test for the presence of controlled substances for decades. Not only are the field tests unreliable and not admissible in many jurisdictions, but it has become increasingly relied upon to negotiate plea deals. Additionally, there is now an increased risk of exposure in performing the tests on site. Instead of a preliminary analysis, some agencies are opting to send the samples directly to a laboratory, where there can be a significant delay for results. Sites undergoing decontamination are rendered unusable until the remediation process is complete. If the site is contaminated, numerous sample sets will be sent to a laboratory for a single site until the contamination is below a set threshold, costing both valuable time and money. Each time a sample set is sent to a laboratory, the results need to be obtained before proceeding, costing yet more time and financial resources.
