A New Test Can Tell from Your Fingerprints if You've Done Cocaine

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Continuing their war on fun, science's anti-party collective has rolled into your local high street on their high horse and carriage, proclaiming that they can now tell if you've been taking cocaine just by looking at your fingerprints.

Researchers at the University of Surrey have engineered a test that can differentiate between people who have ingested cocaine and people who've merely touched it. This is being hailed as a triumph in the circles of people who're tired of taking blood and urine samples, because, let's face it, blood and piss are fucking gross.

Related: "Art with Cocaine" is exactly what it sounds like.

The researchers at the University, along with others from Netherlands Forensic Institute, the UK's National Physical Laboratory, King's College London, and Sheffield Hallam University, a.k.a. the Avengers of fun-hating narco dweebs, have a very clever way of finding out how much Levamisole and powdered bleach you whisked up your hooter in the toilets of All Bar One last Friday after that big fight you had with Tracy.

"When someone has taken cocaine, they excrete traces of benzoylecgonine and methylecgonine as they metabolize the drug, and these chemical indicators are present in fingerprint residue," says Dr. Melanie Bailey from Surrey Uni, whose research could lead to the introduction of portable drug tests for police in the next decade.

Related: 'We Watched London's Weed Fanatics Getting Arrested in Hyde Park for 4/20'

Till then, from science: Testing your corneas to see if you've been watching any banned porn, testing you ear hairs to see how much you've listened to Smash Mouth's "All Star," and other ways for eggheads to get their revenge on a world that has never once invited them to a barn dance.

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