What are these mysterious pills found on the roadside at Paris-Roubaix?

[King Boonen]

In the UK in particular, I have done a lot of work with one of the World's top laboratories located there (it's a Defence laboratory, not a sports drug laboratory). They do have the capability to take any sample and analyse it to confirm to a high certainty, every component in sample. As part of our accreditation schemes they take part in, their costs for 15 days of work runs over 200,000 GBP. If we send them samples to analyse, the standard rate for the lab is around the 15,000 GBP per day. That is an extreme case because of the samples we deal with, but labs aren't cheap to run, especially if you want a comprehensive set of tests conducted.

I'm sorry but this is massively overstating the costs, probably because of the laboratories you work in. Off the top of my head you'd be looking at £5-10,000 to get a university to do it, some may even do it for a lot less. It's unlikely anyone will offer any guarantees as to what they might find, but anyone with a high-resolution mass spectrometer (and TOFs and Orbitraps are everywhere these days) would be able to have a look at it see what they could find. A standard C18 column and simple gradient would no doubt be fine, and peak shape isn't really an issue, it's not like they want quantitation or anything.


Whether they would do it is a different question entirely and it's certainly something that would have to be discussed internally beforehand. We certainly wouldn't just take a powder of some guy who found it by the road and analyse it. If that ever came up I would probably be contacting the police, ethics board and relevant government agencies to make sure everything was ok.


The other option would have been to contact Thermo, Waters, Bruker etc. and got them to do it, likely at a reduced cost because of the added benefit of getting their names and products in the news (Thermo are trying to push the Fusion at the moment).

 

[Hawkwood]

And we need to remember that such a person would never risk passing UK customs with 1g of weed, never mind an unidentified white powder with a 'suspicious' label. It's simply not credible that a veterinary equipment supplier chose to smuggle horse steroids for all he knew.

Customs and Excise, and the UK Police regard `white powder' as being coke until it can proven otherwise.

 

[King Boonen]

Customs and Excise, and the UK Police regard `white powder' as being coke until it can proven otherwise.

My Dad used to get worried about being stopped with the amount of beer we used to bring back from France at the end of our holidays.

There's no way I'd be bringing a random white powder back into the counrty with me unless I actually needed an enema...

 

[Hawkwood]

My Dad used to get worried about being stopped with the amount of beer we used to bring back from France at the end of our holidays.

There's no way I'd be bringing a random white powder back into the counrty with me unless I actually needed an enema...

We do day trips (the docks and the tunnel are both just 20 minutes away) and holidays, we stock up on wine over there, but we're always wary because it all has to be `for personal use', and if HMRC decide you've got too much it's confiscated and there is no appeal. Using the Tunnel we get stopped about 50% of the time going out, they run an electronic swab device over the steering wheel, and door handles, I think it's for drugs, but it could be explosives as well I suppose. We've missed a couple of car shuttle trains because of this, annoying if you're on a tight schedule to get somewhere in France.

 

[King Boonen]

We do day trips (the docks and the tunnel are both just 20 minutes away) and holidays, we stock up on wine over there, but we're always wary because it all has to be `for personal use', and if HMRC decide you've got too much it's confiscated and there is no appeal. Using the Tunnel we get stopped about 50% of the time going out, they run an electronic swab device over the steering wheel, and door handles, I think it's for drugs, but it could be explosives as well I suppose. We've missed a couple of car shuttle trains because of this, annoying if you're on a tight schedule to get somewhere in France.

We used to get 10-20 cases of the small bottles of beer in, mainly in footwells. They had a look but never took it. Must just have assumed Northerners are ****-heads

It's an ion mobility device and is used to detect chemical weapons, explosive residues and drugs. They can be tuned for a particular application, incorporated into handheld or personal monitors (the army use them) and can be run continuously or as and when required. If it was a swab that they took away to a separate instrument it is most likely a Smiths Detection Ion Scan http://www.smithsdetection.com/prod...ics-detection/ionscan-500dt.html#.U7PZvJS7xY4 probably an older model than that though. I've seen these and their precursors at every airport I've been through in the UK.

The security staff give you funny looks when you can tell them how it works...

 

[Hawkwood]

We used to get 10-20 cases of the small bottles of beer in, mainly in footwells. They had a look but never took it. Must just have assumed Northerners are ****-heads

It's an ion mobility device and is used to detect chemical weapons, explosive residues and drugs. They can be tuned for a particular application, incorporated into handheld or personal monitors (the army use them) and can be run continuously or as and when required. If it was a swab that they took away to a separate instrument it is most likely a Smiths Detection Ion Scan http://www.smithsdetection.com/prod...ics-detection/ionscan-500dt.html#.U7PZvJS7xY4 probably an older model than that though. I've seen these and their precursors at every airport I've been through in the UK.

The security staff give you funny looks when you can tell them how it works...

Yes they take it away, so sounds like your Smiths unit above. I can't believe some of the cars they stop, people and cars that could not possibly fit into any profile of a terrorist or drugs smuggler.

 

[King Boonen]

Yes they take it away, so sounds like your Smiths unit above. I can't believe some of the cars they stop, people and cars that could not possibly fit into any profile of a terrorist or drugs smuggler.

Smiths are an enormous company, I think they make those naked body scanners too.


I'm guessing it's due to government policies but then again maybe they're the best people to smuggle drugs

 

[Hawkwood]

Yes they take it away, so sounds like your Smiths unit above. I can't believe some of the cars they stop, people and cars that could not possibly fit into any profile of a terrorist or drugs smuggler.

Not sure I'm making myself very clear, it appears to be a handheld electronic device, they always return to the office, and a few minutes later emerge to wave us through. They do batches of about three or four cars at a time.

 

[King Boonen]

Not sure I'm making myself very clear, it appears to be a handheld electronic device, they always return to the office, and a few minutes later emerge to wave us through. They do batches of about three or four cars at a time.

No, I got you, that's the Ion Scan, but then I wasn't very clear!

It could be another companies instrument, not specifically Smiths, which is why I mentioned the body scanner as they don't hold exclusive patents over ion mobility as a technique (but have several over the ways they implement it).

I've only ever seen Smiths instruments in use in the UK, so I'm assuming it was one of theirs.

Basically I know how pedantic the clinic can be, so covering my statement in case it turns out it came from Environics or someone else!

 

[thehog]

Re:

What race is this picture from?

 

[snccdcno]

Flanders 2014.

 

[sniper]

nice work Luigi

Manufactured at the GSK lab perhaps?

 

[Random Direction]

Should be easily traced.

Here is what I could come up with: https://www.drugs.com/imprints.php?imprint=pliva+5&color=&shape=5

closest on color and shape are 528 and 518- trisalate and theophylline - the colour does not match Luigi description though

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliva - Pliva d.o.o.[2] is a Croatian pharmaceutical company, based in Zagreb, Croatia. . Pretty sure it is from this manufacturer - the PLI is a giveaway

 

[Chipist]

Can the QR be scanned and the number it represents be posted?