Quality Management in International Forensic Drug Laboratories

The aim of this study was first to establish the extent of quality standards and recommendations within the forensic drug environment and secondly, the level to which they were implemented in forensic drug laboratories globally. A questionnaire was developed to measure quality variables according to five categories in forensic drug laboratories, namely equipment, personnel, quality assurance and quality control, customer relationship as well as productivity. A total of seventy international drug laboratories participated in the study which consisted of laboratories from the United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Finland, Netherlands, Switzerland, Taiwan and Israel. To make statistical inferences on the greater population of forensic drug laboratories, all data was converted to proportions. These proportions were compared to international quality standards such as ISO 17025 and ASCLD/LAB.