Scatter Brained

C H A P T E R   9

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S C A T T E R B R A I N E D
with the law, Barry is still on the City Council in Washington, 
D.C. No doubt Barry knows the diff erence between baking 
powder and cocaine (by which we only mean he studied chem-
istry!). And soon, so will you. . . .
08
How to Spot Real from Fake
DRUGS
Strategy 1:
 Put the substance in question near a drug dog. 
Lest you worry that police somewhere are getting their Ger-
man shepherds addicted to methamphetamine so the pups 
can sniff  it out of suitcases: Drug dogs learn to fi nd drugs the 
same way Shamu learns to jump—Pavlovian training. Train-
ers begin by thrilling pups with a tug-of-war game with an 
odorless white towel. Th
  en the trainer wraps drugs in the 
towel and hides it. Th
  e dog searches out its favorite toy, and 
when it fi nds the towel, it gets another game of tug-of-war. 
Over time, the dog comes to associate tug-of-war with the 
smell of the drug. Given a couple years of intense training, 
dogs can be trained to sniff  out marijuana, heroin, cocaine, 
meth, and even prescription narcotics.
Strategy 2:
 Get out your chemistry set. Or, more specifi cally, 
your Porta-Pak narcotics kit. Although primarily used by law 
enforcement, chemical reagents that test whether a sub-
stance is actually an illegal drug are available to the public. 
Mostly either plastic pouches or old-fashioned glass tubes, 
the products feature chemicals that change color when in the 
presence of various drugs—they’re as easy to use as, and 
somewhat scientifi cally similar to, home pregnancy tests. 
Tests are available for everything from ephedrine to mesca-

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line. In fact, back in 2001, it was through exactly such a test 
that police offi
  cers in Rochester, N.Y., discovered that a large 
number of club kids who thought they were ingesting the de-
signer drug MDMA, or ecstasy, were actually taking Remife-
min, which treats symptoms of menopause.