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Fingertip Drug Analysis: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
The detectives have raided a house and found some suspicious white powder or liquid. One of them puts his or her finger in it, then either sniffs it or tastes it. They pronounce it's heroin or cocaine or whatever. Or if it's phony drugs, they announce [[Beat Bag|"Powdered sugar!"]]
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If the substance is blood, you're performing [[The Ketchup Test]]. For any case of testing mysterious substances by taste or smell see [[Sniff Sniff Nom]].
{{examples|Examples:}}▼
== Anime
* In the anime version of ''[[Dominion Tank Police]]'' there's a scene where Brenten tastes some mysterious liquid, then is informed a moment too late that it's a urine sample. (The manga had no such gag, but it's exactly the kind of thing Brenten would have done.)
* In ''[[Great Teacher Onizuka]]'', Onizuka needs more than a million yen to pay for a vacation trip and his buddy cop Saejima gives him bags of white powder, supposedly cocaine, that are apparently worth millions. Kikuchi immediately pokes his finger in the bags and tastes the powder, and says that it is just ordinary flour. Onizuka is angry at being cheated, but Saejima replies that "I never said it was cocaine! It is good flour! You could sell it to a bakery!"
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* Played completely straight in episode 2 of ''[[Space Adventure Cobra]]: The Psychogun'' where Cobra tastes a vat of some glowing substance the villain has hidden away, and concludes that he is smuggling drugs.
== Comic Books ==
== Comics ==▼
* [[Judge Dredd]] once identified a shipment of illegal sugar by tasting.
== Film ==
* The [[James Bond (
* Spoofed in ''[[The Princess Bride (
** Though it should be noted that in the book he identified it as iocaine ''because'' of the lack of any odor and the fact that a man obviously was killed by a fast-acting poison beside it. Notably he says "Iocaine, I bet my life on it." meaning he couldn't decidedly identify it, but given the circumstances and evidence, made an educated guess.
* Subverted in the movie ''Showtime'', which shows an undercover detective verifying a drug buy with a small chemical apparatus, and later, when William Shatner as Himself demonstrates the Fingertip Method, he is met with the question "And what if it was cyanide?"
* Frank Oz identifies the drugs planted on Dan Aykroyd in ''[[Trading Places]]'' as PCP using this method. Which is insane considering what even a tiny amount of PCP can do.
* Also spoofed in [[There Is No Such Thing
* In the third [[The Terminator|Terminator]] movie, the T-X analyzes blood samples this way. A bit of a variation in that she knows it's blood (der), but has to find out whose DNA it is.
** Justified in the T-X is a machine and as such it is entirely reasonable that it would be built to be able to perform that test with built-in equipment.
** Moreover, unlike a human cop she's highly unlikely to be poisoned as a result of tasting something nasty.
* Spoofed in ''[[
* The buddy-cop movie ''[[Tango and Cash]]'' opens with [[Sylvester Stallone|Ray Tango]] arresting two punks, who have driven an oil truck well outside his jurisdiction. The highway patrol arrives on the scene and chides him for his recklessness, and a search of the truck reveals nothing but oil. They ask if he thinks [[Shout
{{quote|
* In the movie version of ''[[Harry Potter and
* Spoofed in ''[[The Boondock Saints|The Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day]]'':
{{quote|
'''Murphy:''' ''([[Beat]])'' How the fuck would you know that?
'''Connor:''' Fuck you! I know shit! }}
* Basil does this in [[The Great Mouse Detective]], when he suspects someone of spiking his drink.
* In ''[[Dumb and Dumber]]'' a state trooper suspects that the two protagonists are drinking alcohol while driving so he orders them to hand over the open bottle they have and takes a drink to confirm this. He really should have tried to smell it first since {{spoiler|it is urine}}.
== Literature ==
* Spoofed in [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[
{{quote|
"Er, yes," said Carrot.
"T'ank goodness for dat," said Detritus, blinking furiously. "'D hate to believe dis room was ''really'' full of giant hairy spide... weeble weeble sclup ..." }}
** Ironic especially since Deterius was the one who relayed the fate of Sergeant Flint [[Who Would Be Stupid Enough...?|and stated how dumb it was]]
*** Earlier, Vimes found a mysterious bag of white powder in his desk but explicitly refused to taste it, instead asking the on-staff alchemist to see if it was arsenic. Shortly afterwards Carrot did use this method. On a mysterious bag of white powder he'd just seen Vimes stuff a handful from into his mouth. It turned out to be sugar, Vimes having swapped out the bag for one from the canteen.
* ''[[
* In ''Agents of Light and Darkness'', John Taylor performs the fingertip touch-and-taste test on a statue, and confirms it's a human who's been transformed into salt. Only in the [[Nightside]]...
* Mentioned in [[Stephen Fry]]'s autobiography ''Moab Is My Washpot'', when he recounts the head boy at his prep school catching him with stolen sweets.
{{quote|
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure you haven't. And what have we got here then?"
If the memory weren't so absurdly anachronistic, I could almost swear that Pollock ripped open one of the flying saucers and put his tongue to the sherbet like a Hollywood cop tasting white powder. }}
* In [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s ''[[The
* ''The Curious Misadventures Of Feltus Ovalton'' has Percy about to do this to a packet of concentrated itching powder; fortunately, Feltus stops him.
* Maureen does this (cautiously) in Robert Heinlein's ''[[To Sail Beyond the Sunset]]'' while searching out-of-control teen daughter Priscilla's room, when she finds a bag of white powder. She concludes it's cocaine from the numbing effect (she did also find what she decided was marijuana). She briefly considers turning the stash over to the police in hopes they'll find her daughter's dealer, but decides it would be pretty close to impossible to convince the police the stash is her daughter's rather than her own, and flushes it.
=== Periodicals ===
* Invoked in a "Clichéd TV Lines" competition in ''New York Magazine'' in the early 1970s, reprinted in the collection ''Maybe He's Dead'': "Milk sugar!"
== Live
* Bodie, Doyle and Cowley regularly do this in seventies action show ''[[The Professionals]]''.
* Also spoofed in one episode of ''[[Police Squad!]]''
* A variation on the trope occurred on ''[[Barney Miller]]'' when Barney suspects some brownies baked by Wojo's girlfriend have hashish in them. He asks Harris to test the brownies, which Harris does... by eating one, rather than sending it to the lab as Barney had expected.
* Has appeared a couple of times on ''[[
* The Doctor does this with ''blood'', even identifying the blood group, in the ''[[
** Ten developed a bit of a habit of um... licking things. Not necessarily always for diagnostic purposes.
*** Eleven does this as well. With a shed. To calculate how long it's been since it was built.
* In the TV show ''Sisters'', one of the sisters, Teddy, and her boyfriend come across some some drugs hidden in a shipment of clothes from her clothing line. The boyfriend open one of packages and tastes the drug. Teddy asks if it's heroin and he replies he doesn't know, that's just what they do on TV.
* In an episode of ''[[The X
** Mulder does this ''all the time,'' actually, including with some (fake) blood in "Revelations". Scully's face is a wonder to behold.
* Fraser of ''[[Due South]]'' does this constantly, much to his partner's irritation.
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* Spoofed in ''[[Just Shoot Me]]'': Jack is about to take a bite of what he thinks is a diet pastry when Nina stops him, tastes the substance on top and declares it to be "Sugar, pure cane."
* A version occurs in ''[[The Drew Carey Show]]'', where Drew is suspected of being a drug addict. The cop assigned to the case goes through his house, finding various evidence that means he ''could'' be an addict, and having it explained away by the peculiarities of Drew being Drew. Then he finds the coffee table in the living room covered in white powder.
{{quote|
'''Drew:''' It's icing sugar. I have donuts sometimes when I'm watching TV.
'''Cop:''' Come on. You know how many donuts you'd have to eat to make this much--*tastes it* Ah, it's sugar. }}
** On another episode of ''The Drew Carey Show'', a bag of what appears to be cocaine is found. An employee tastes it and says, "Interesting. I have no idea what cocaine tastes like."
* Sam Tyler in ''[[Life On Mars]]'' not only identifies a sample of heroin but can tell from its colour that it's from Turkey... much to the suspicion of his police colleagues, as heroin is a new drug that's barely hit the street in 1973.
{{quote|
'''Gene:''' Because he's on it. }}
** This is very anachronistic. Heroin was a major problem as of the turn of the century, much less the 1970s. Heroin just seems to make a comeback every few decades... the 1930s, 1950s, 1970s, and 2000s have all seen big comebacks for heroin.
* In one episode of ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'', Thirteen does this when trying to track down what their patient's cocaine was cut with.
** Justified, however, in that Thirteen has a chronic case of death wish.
* ''[[Star Trek:
** On ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Deep Space Nine]]'' Sisko once gave Gul'Dukat back a bottle of poisoned wine. Weyoun took a swig and declared it 'quite toxic'. He then explained that Vorta are immune to most poisons.
* Averted on ''[[Law and Order SVU]]''. When Elliot is undercover as a white-collar drug dealer, he "tests the product" of a potential supplier by ''feeling'' the powder's consistency. Asked why he doesn't taste it instead, he claims that they do random drug tests at his workplace; he only sells cocaine, he can't risk using it.
* Beckett does the test and finds heroin in ''[[Castle]]''. Castle comments on how badass she looked doing it.
* Jasper Carrott and Robert Powell taste some white powder in crime-drama spoof ''The Detectives''. Then they taste it again to make sure. Cut to the pair driving down the motorway at approximately
* The Hyde persona in the British series ''[[Jekyll]]'' identified a soldier's age, diet, and number and breed of pets by ''smell'' and was also able to determine that he had cancer, where, and his life expectancy by tasting his sweat.
* On ''[[The Incredible Hulk]]'' David taste-tested some white powder he found on his foot after transforming back from being the Hulk. (Hulk had rampaged through a warehouse full of drugs.) Possibly justified in that he ''is'' a [[Omnidisciplinary Scientist|doctor]].
* [[MacGyver]] tests a suspected drug sample this way, only to find out that it's keratin (powdered rhino horn).
* Played for laughs on ''[[
{{quote|
'''Graeme:''' Huh? Oh, that's--''(sniffs -- collapses, then gets up, looking completely spaced out)''--hooh! Where'd you get the stuff, man? Cool, baby, cool... }}
* Gill Grissom gets called out on this ''twice'' in ''CSI'': early in the show, while trying to understand a woman's disappearance in a supermarket, he finds a yellow smudge on the floor and performs the fingertip dip taste test. Captain Brass, who was hovering nearby, winces in disgust and goes "Oh, ''that's'' sanitary." Luckily for Grissom, it was just mustard. But the second time he does it, much later in the series, it's Catherine who warns him that one of these days he'll really regret doing that.
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* Chief Inspector Japp does this at least twice in [[Poirot]] - identifying cocaine in ''The Affair at the Victory Ball'', and heroin in ''Evil Under the Sun''.
▲== Web Comics ==
* Parodied on a ''[[VG Cats]]'' comic [http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=212 strip] about ''[[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney]]''. His lovely female assistant finds residue from "some mysterious [white] liquid" all over his computer and tastes it. She exclaims, "Salty...must be blood!"▼
* Parodied in [http://www.thinkin-lincoln.com/index.php?strip_id=585 this strip] of ''[[Thinkin' Lincoln]]'' (see page image).▼
==
* ''[[Tonight's Episode]]'' - a blog parodying the [[Title Sequence|title card]] of ''[[Police Squad!]]'' - has [https://tonights-episode.tumblr.com/post/170592692397 this entry: "WHY WE DON’T CHECK FOR DRUGS WITH FINGER-LICKING".]
▲* Parodied on a ''[[VG Cats]]'' comic [http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=212 strip] about ''[[Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney]]''. His lovely female assistant finds residue from "some mysterious [white] liquid" all over his computer and tastes it. She exclaims, "Salty...must be blood!"
▲* Parodied in [http://www.thinkin-lincoln.com/index.php?strip_id=585 this strip] of ''[[Thinkin Lincoln]]'' (see page image).
== Western Animation ==
* Occurs in ''[[
* A weird example from ''[[King of the Hill]]'': When Hank suspects Dale topped off his mower's gas tank with water, [[Fat Idiot|Bill]] takes a drink from the fuel line.
{{quote|
* ''[[
* On ''[[
{{quote|
* In the pilot of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Mandy to a “swirling vortex [[Made of Evil|of pure evil]] coming out of billy’s floor”
== Real Life ==
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** Likewise, when methamphetamines were becoming popular, policy in many jurisdictions was for police officers to fan the air in suspected meth labs towards their noses in order to pick up on the fumes. Given the nature of meth fumes, most of the drug officers in at least one jurisdiction that did this eventually contracted throat and mouth cancer.
*** In chemistry, a brief fanning towards your nose is the recommended procedure if you need to smell something, versus shoving your schnoz directly into the beaker which can deck you. However, this should only be done if you have a reasonable expectation of the chemical, so you know what you're smelling is not (excessively) toxic. Smelling ''wholly unknown'' chemicals is like playing [[Russian Roulette]].
* It's said one of [[Sherlock Holmes]]' real life inspiration pulled a trick using this. The Professor had two vials of urine, one from a diabetic, he dips a finger in and taste
** [[Truth in Television]], even without the admonishment. Prior to the development of chemical assays for glucose in urine, doctors really did detect it in this way. The "mellitus" in "diabetes mellitus" means "honey-flavored."
* "[http://notalwaysright.com/tasting-is-believing It has to be chlorine]". Indeed.
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* You can learn quite a bit about an unknown chemical by smelling it, though you should use the 'wafting' technique and fan the scents towards your nose. Esters usually smell sweet or fruity, sulfur compounds reek, and amines often smell fishy. Many working chemists also learn to identify common solvents by scent, and smell is often the first sense to warn you when something is boiling over, or has been left uncapped, or is reacting in unexpected ways.
* Most artificial sweeteners were discovered when chemists noticed that their new chemical tasted incredibly sweet (or more often, failed to wash their hands after handling the chemical and found that everything they touched tasted sweet).
* The psychedelic properties of LSD were first discovered through something similar to
* Subverted almost every episode of COPS (well, every episode there's a drug test) with the baggie-test. Portable chemical tests the police have contain reactants that will change color in the presence of the primary component of the drug; if you've gone more than three episodes of that show without seeing the next contestant on Is It Blue at some point, count yourself lucky.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Crime and Punishment Tropes]]▼
[[Category:Television Is Trying to Kill Us]]
[[Category:This Is Your Index On Drugs]]
[[Category:Mystery Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Crime and Punishment Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Trope]]
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