Contra Costa sheriff’s office receives $400K grant to improve drug testing equipment

The Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office has received a $408,853 grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety to buy a liquid chromatography mass spectrometer enabling testing to detect drugs in prospective DUI cases, a sheriff’s spokesman said.

The new equipment can detect illegal drugs, prescription drugs and over-the-counter drugs commonly found in not only cases of driving under the influence of drugs, but also in cases involving drug-facilitated sexual assault being investigated by that office and by police agencies throughout Contra Costa County, as well as the larger criminal justice system.