(SFPD) Chief orders drug lab closed permanently

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

(05-05) 16:57 PDT SAN FRANCISCO --

The San Francisco Police Department will close its scandal-marred drug lab permanently and use outside testers to analyze narcotics evidence, Police Chief George Gascón said Wednesday.

"We have determined that we would be better served" by having independent laboratories test seized substances to determine if they are drugs, Gascón said at a news conference.

That will enable the Police Department's crime lab at Hunters Point to focus on testing of weapons and DNA evidence, areas that are "quite frankly of greater importance to our crime-fighting efforts," Gascón said.

The department shut down the drug analysis section of the crime lab March 9 amid an investigation into whether now-retired technician Deborah Madden skimmed powdered cocaine and OxyContin evidence.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/05/BAO81D9UMM.DTL&feed=rss.bayarea

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Hmm, so I wonder how privatization of drug evidence analysis will fare for the SFPD when it can't trust its own employees?