Before the Bree Street crowd freak out, whilst trying to make it through the day in the aftermath of First Thursday, this technology hasn’t reached South Africa – yet.

Over in the UK, however, some users might be sweating a little more than usual over the test designed by researchers at the University of Surrey.

Just by scanning a person’s fingerprints, the test can tell whether that person has handled, or used, cocaine.

It can be completed in less than two minutes, which is far quicker than blood tests, and could be used for forensic investigations or drug testing.

More from Sky News:

To do this they use a technology known as high resolution mass spectrometry, which can detect traces of drugs and their metabolites in sweat collected from fingerprints…

The team took fingerprints from people seeking treatment at drug rehabilitation clinics who had taken cocaine in the last 24 hours.

The participants were then told to wash their hands with soap and water before giving another set of fingerprints.

According to the scientists, a molecule produced in the body as a metabolite of cocaine, Benzoylecgonine, could be found in the tests of people even after they had washed their hands.

It’s all rather technical, but the end result was the same. That chemical wasn’t present in samples from people who hadn’t used cocaine.

We should note that the results only showed up positive for those who had used in the past 24 hours, so there’s hope for users whose last binge was a while back.

In due course, the test may be used to aid in identifying those who have broken drug-driving laws, which currently rely on the presence of illegal drugs in the blood.

Just another reason to take an Uber, then.

It will still be a while before the test can be rolled out across the UK, pending regulation around how it should be used.

[source:sky]