Drug testing apps for phones

[ServingDominos]

Hi everyone

So i'm working on an iPhone and android app that will allow users to test their drugs through their phones while they're at a festival, club or whatever.

The drugs i'm thinking of include MDMA and ecstasy pills for the moment and hopefully coke, ket and other substances later.
Currently doing market research.

What do you guys think of the idea? also how much would you be willing to pay for such an app?

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[alasdairm]

i think it is a great idea in theory but how can it possibly work in practice?

alasdair

 

[Not Dead Yet]

I don't think I would pay anything unless there was a gas chromatograph / mass spectrometer hooked up to the phone. If I had one, I'd burn the sample myself. Good luck, though. I admire forward thinkers. Mikie

 

[ServingDominos]

Well for pills: Take a picture and compare and collect data from all over the internet and make an educated determination.

Also working with a leading scientist in university college of London who will calibrate everything hopefully

 

[Transform]

I would be really interested to see this but I think it would have some serious technical challenges to overcome.

I would start with getting it working in an at-home setting first, then take on the challenges associated with dark clubs where drugs are prohibited!

 

[kratomman420]

unless you talking about pharmacuticals which have markings to identify them, or different strains of weed, this isnt possible, like you cant just take a picture of powder and have your phone say 40% di acetyl morphine, 60% MDMA, or you could i guess but youd be lying and it would just be a random app that lies to peole, theres just not enough information to identify a drug in a picture

maybe if the phone could smell as well

 

[Ekstasis-//7]

The current applications using a phone camera and creating a spectrum readout seems to be only useful in graphing the intensities of various wavelengths of light and not very not useful for accurate chemical analysis on it's own. When linked up to a laser and the appropriate lenses, filters and exposure time however we start to get into some very plausable technology that is currently used by law enforcement and pharmicuitical companies in detection of known drugs, fillers, binders and even some indication of quantity. I'm talking here about Raman Spectroscopy and FTIR.

I would encourage people to explore current developing technologies for accurate and portable drug checking. At present I am quite interested in the promising results from users who have built their own Raman Spec machines including one journal article in 2015 I've read about these DIY Raman machines compared to industry models and also some interesting youtube vids. Current models of Raman Spec machines used by law enforcement seem to each have their own specialities and flaws in their database analysing. I am hopeful that one day soon with projects underway such as with the open source RamenPi Project https://hackaday.io/project/1279-ramanpi-raman-spectrometer that we will have an intelligent open source software linked to a large chemical database of the spectrum graph of each chemical. The reason we need this is because this is because with a technology such as Raman or FTIR a combination of chemicals in a pill (lets say even just lactose as the filler and MDMA as the active compound) are layed over the top of eachother and would need intelligent software to quickly manage matching them up from a known database and separating these out to give you a match.

If anyone has built their own DIY Raman Spectroscopy machine or has knowledge of an open source database that can be calibrated to different wavelength lasers depending on one used please feel free to let us know. Also if you have looked into other technologies that maybe more efficient and less problimatic, I would love to hear. I believe about 10yrs ago Johnboy looked into using the current tech used by customs as a portible pill testing machine. I believe the tech was ion-scanner?? I would love to hear how it compares with Ramen or FTIR which seem to be getting close to the price point and usability for an enthusist to make at home and be portable.

 

[kratomman420]

The current applications using a phone camera and creating a spectrum readout seems to be only useful in graphing the intensities of various wavelengths of light and not very not useful for accurate chemical analysis on it's own. When linked up to a laser and the appropriate lenses, filters and exposure time however we start to get into some very plausable technology that is currently used by law enforcement and pharmicuitical companies in detection of known drugs, fillers, binders and even some indication of quantity. I'm talking here about Raman Spectroscopy and FTIR.

I would encourage people to explore current developing technologies for accurate and portable drug checking. At present I am quite interested in the promising results from users who have built their own Raman Spec machines including one journal article in 2015 I've read about these DIY Raman machines compared to industry models and also some interesting youtube vids. Current models of Raman Spec machines used by law enforcement seem to each have their own specialities and flaws in their database analysing. I am hopeful that one day soon with projects underway such as with the open source RamenPi Project https://hackaday.io/project/1279-ramanpi-raman-spectrometer that we will have an intelligent open source software linked to a large chemical database of the spectrum graph of each chemical. The reason we need this is because this is because with a technology such as Raman or FTIR a combination of chemicals in a pill (lets say even just lactose as the filler and MDMA as the active compound) are layed over the top of eachother and would need intelligent software to quickly manage matching them up from a known database and separating these out to give you a match.

If anyone has built their own DIY Raman Spectroscopy machine or has knowledge of an open source database that can be calibrated to different wavelength lasers depending on one used please feel free to let us know. Also if you have looked into other technologies that maybe more efficient and less problimatic, I would love to hear. I believe about 10yrs ago Johnboy looked into using the current tech used by customs as a portible pill testing machine. I believe the tech was ion-scanner?? I would love to hear how it compares with Ramen or FTIR which seem to be getting close to the price point and usability for an enthusist to make at home and be portable.

i was just saying its impossible to do on a iphone, the tester would cost more than the phone itself, itd be unaffordable

 

[Transform]

Ok now you're talking - with an external emitter/detector setup it seems like this would be a very viable approach to semi portable, affordable analysis that might be able to provide utility between reagent tests and laboratory techniques.

Yes, it might cost a few hundred euros, but that's within the reach of most HR organisations operating at events, and of home enthusiasts too.