New York State's evidential oral fluid testing program

Oral fluid is a viable alternative to traditional sample matrices used in driving under the influence of drugs (DUID) casework. Oral fluid offers several advantages including rapid collection relative to the time of incident, ease of collection, and the ability to detect all routinely encountered drugs of abuse. In July of 2024, the New York State Police (NYSP) implemented a statewide evidentiary oral fluid program following the successful completion of a nine-month pilot study. The pilot consisted of 201 paired oral fluid-blood samples which showed an overall correlation rate of 96%. Ninety-three of the paired samples showed additional positives in the oral fluid that were not detected in the blood, including 21 6-acetylmorphine positives, making oral fluid especially valuable in the investigation of heroin use. In the first year of casework submissions following the pilot study, 703 oral fluid samples were submitted to the laboratory (27% of total samples), and this number has continued to rise as agencies throughout the state have embraced the new sample type. This article details the overall testing scheme and analytical methods used by the NYSP Forensic Investigation Center for the analysis of oral fluid, as well as blood testing methods in place during the pilot study. Data from the pilot program and the first year of oral fluid casework are presented, along with implementation strategies that engage all stakeholders. This may serve as a resource for other agencies looking to implement evidential oral fluid testing for DUID investigations.