Ask any American lawyer, and he will tell you that you should never, ever voluntarily consent to cops searching your car. If they ask you, you must always clearly state "I do not consent to any searches".
A Floridan man had clearly not gotten that memo and some time ago found out the hard way why that's a good idea.
Cops stopped him for "window tints", ordered him out of the car, put him in handcuffs (which is already legally questionable) and asked if they could search his car. The man, knowing that there was absolutely nothing illegal in his car, was naive enough to consent. He probably thought that the traffic stop would go easier if he just consented. A lawyer would have told him a huge categorical "NO!" but alas, not many people know this.
There was indeed nothing illegal in his car, but what followed was a year-long nightmare for him that not only had a big psychological toll on him, but cost who knows how much money.
The cops found some prescription medication that he had for irritable bowel syndrome, used some dubious test on it, a test that simply shows some vague color of the liquid that's used in it, and interpreted the result of the test as the medication actually being fentanyl. Or cocaine. Or something. Even they didn't know. And, of course, it was none of that, but they didn't care. They charged him anyway.
It took him one year and 4 months of legal battles to clear his name, and who knows how much money.
The drug test that the cops use on the field is extremely unreliable, as it's based solely on what color the liquid takes when mixed with the substance, and not only is interpreting this "color" up to the cop's personal opinion, but there's a huge amount of false positives, ie. a lot of substances that cause the same or similar coloring as the illegal substances for which they are testing. As was the case here as well.
Not that the cops care. They just throw the entire book at such a person, get a notch in their arrest statistics (which helps them get bonuses and promotions), and forget about it.
They ruin people's lives, and they don't care because they don't have to care. They only care about their own careers, even if it comes at the cost of other people's lives.
And all this because the guy hadn't learned that he must never, ever consent to searches.
Here's a video about the event:
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