The BOP uses something called a Narcotic Identification Kit (NIK) test when charging federal prisoners of possessing drugs. At FCI Cumberland, I hear that about 60 to 90 of such accusations made in recent months have been thrown out on appeal, and others have been thrown out by the DHO, because the NIK test is unreliable and SIS lacked other evidence that the random piece of trash they tested was drugs. SIS refuses to send suspected drugs to a laboratory for confirmation.
In my case, SIS destroyed well over an ounce of what they called drugs while performing the NIK test, apparently to prevent a second test from being conducted that might contradict their results. It deliberately used an excessively large sample, which causes false positives. Apparently, the NIK test comes with a scoop that holds one to two milligrams and the instructions say that users should only use a scoop’s worth of material to conduct the test.
Meanwhile, the administration is refusing to process my administrative remedies complaining about SIS misuse of the NIK test.
Another issue is that is has not issued a DHO report on a timely basis. Without a DHO report, the upper levels of the BOP won’t consider my appeal of the incident report.
I have been trying to speak to a university professor who is an expert on the NIK test to get his opinion, but today they blocked that professor as a contact, apparently to prevent me from obtaining a statement from her that I may use against them in court.
Maybe half a dozen people a month ask me to help them appeal incident reports involving NIK tests. About half of them admit that what was found was drugs (and I don’t help them), and the other half tell me that SIS took some random piece of paper and tested it and it came up positive. There are instructions listing the kinds of paper that cannot be accurately tested with the NIK, and there are also limits on the size of paper samples, none of which are adhered to in these shots. In fact, the staff here have told me that they know certain kinds of papers, like playing cards, always give them a false positive on the NIK test.