Local drug lab backlog easing
DA: Test delays affected cases
By Scott J. Croteau
TELEGRAM & GAZETTE (MA)
November 2, 2006
WORCESTER— Several Central Massachusetts police departments used laboratories elsewhere in the state during the last five years to test drugs seized in arrests. A backlog in the drug laboratory at the University of Massachusetts Medical School forced District Attorney John J. Conte to ask 14 police departments to go elsewhere.
But now, four of those departments with a large volume of drug busts are back having their drugs tested here after the backlog ended Sept. 1. Ten others with a lesser volume will also be invited back, Mr. Conte said.
For more than five years there was a backup in the laboratory, Mr. Conte said. Some drugs wouldn’t come back from testing for two or three months, he said.
“We had a tremendous backlog for a long time,” he said. Worcester police had much of the backlog.
Now, drugs are coming back from testing in less than two weeks, according to Mr. Conte. He said 30 days is a good time frame, but he hopes the two-week turnaround holds.
“Right now, we’re ahead of any lab around,” he said.
Fitchburg Police Chief Edward F. Cronin, whose department began going to the Department of Mental Health laboratory in Amherst a couple of years ago, said drug cases backed up in the court when the laboratory backed up.
“It was very inefficient because they were so backed up we had cases going stale in court and judges were throwing out cases,” Chief Cronin said. Mr. Conte said not many cases were thrown out and those dismissed were dismissed without prejudice. His office brought the cases back to court after the drugs were tested.
It was demoralizing for officers who worked on a case, sometimes risked their lives and invested time in investigations to see cases stalled because the drugs were not back from testing, Chief Cronin said.
Officials knew how to fix the backlog and needed state legislators to help.
The budget money for the laboratory was in the medical school’s budget for years, the district attorney said, and some of the money ended up being absorbed into the school’s budget, he said.
In 2001, Mr. Conte and Dr. Aaron Lazare, chancellor and dean of the medical school, signed a letter to local legislators stating the money for the drug laboratory needed to be a separate line item from the medical school’s budget.
Because the 2002 fiscal year budget was already under way, it wasn’t until the following fiscal year that the drug laboratory’s budget stood alone. That allowed the hiring of more chemists, a manager for the laboratory and more personnel.
Fitchburg, Leominster, Gardner and Spencer have all been asked to come back to the drug laboratory, which was set up by Mr. Conte in 1987. He said those communities had a higher volume of drugs needing testing. They, along with Ashburnham, East Brookfield, Hubbardston, New Braintree, Oakham, Petersham, Phillipston, Templeton, Warren and West Brookfield, were asked to go to other drug laboratories in the state a couple of years ago.
Some of the communities went to the State Crime Lab in Sudbury or the Department of Public Health laboratory in Amherst.
Having those 14 communities out of the crime laboratory in the city helped cut down on the backlog, but not eliminate it, Mr. Conte said.
The district attorney’s role in the drug laboratory is to ensure the drug tests come back in a timely fashion, considering the drugs are evidence in criminal cases. The crime laboratory handles the communities in Worcester County. The budget for the laboratory is about $450,000 this fiscal year, Mr. Conte said.
The laboratory can handle 485 samples a month.
The Spencer Police Department combined services it needed such as fingerprinting and drug testing when the department went to the state crime lab, Spencer Police Chief David B. Darrin said.
“It was a very small adjustment to us, but I am sure to others it was significant,” he said.
Chief Cronin was pleased with the fast turnaround at the UMass lab now that the backlog is gone. His department has been using UMass for the past couple of weeks.
“I am very grateful for John Conte’s efforts to get us going up again locally,” he said.
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Copyright 2006 Worcester Telegram & Gazette Corp.