Video: Fentanyl detection device demonstrated for Ohio law enforcement officers

By Staff report, The News-Herald

Sponsors of the U.S. Senate bill say devices like this one will help state and local law enforcement detect fentanyl and other dangerous substances.
Sponsors of the U.S. Senate bill say devices like this one will help state and local law enforcement detect fentanyl and other dangerous substances. Courtesy of Sen. Sherrod Brown’s office

A group of Ohio law enforcement officers recently got a closer look at a device that can detect fentanyl.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, on May 15 invited members of the Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association to receive a demonstration of the high-tech screening devices that local law enforcement would get under his Providing Officers with Electronic Resources (POWER) Act, according to a news release.

The bill is co-sponsored by Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio.

According to Brown’s office, the equipment that would be purchased with the funding uses laser technology to analyze potentially harmful substances — even through some packaging — and identifies those substances based on a library of thousands of compounds that are categorized within the device. That library can be updated as most drug compounds come on the market.

“Law enforcement officers are on the front lines of our effort to combat illegal fentanyl,” Brown said in a recent conference call with reporters. “We know this drug is increasingly one of the biggest contributors to the opioid epidemic.”

Watch a demonstration of the device in the video above.

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