A tale of two constables: has hair testing been misused in police disciplinary matters?

A Herald Sun article published over the weekend¹ prompted me to consider the use, and possible misuse, of hair testing in police disciplinary proceedings.

The matter of TDD (an alias)

The article discusses TDD (Police Registration and Services Board, Review Division, R38/2025, Enright DP, Davids and Stefanovic Members, 27 May 2026) (‘the matter of TDD’).

TDD was a Victoria Police constable with approximately 20 months’ service. On 3 January 2025, he underwent compulsory targeted drug testing while police simultaneously executed a search warrant at his home. The testing followed a months-long investigation arising largely from his connection and cohabitation with Mr D, who was suspected of drug trafficking and associated with an OMCG member.

The Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine (‘VIFM’) received an approximately 6 cm head-hair sample. It divided the sample into three 2 cm segments. No reportable common drugs were detected in the two segments closest to the scalp. The distal segment (the 2 cm furthest from the scalp) returned a reportable methylamphetamine result of 0.34 ng/mg, or 340 pg/mg, with amphetamine also detected.² VIFM estimated that this segment corresponded approximately to the period between July and September 2024.

The result was consistent with exposure to, and potentially ingestion of, methylamphetamine. However, hair testing cannot establish a precise date of exposure or, by itself, conclusively distinguish deliberate consumption from every possible alternative explanation.

Enter the B sample

Reputable collection procedures generally provide for equivalent A and B samples. The A sample is tested initially, while the B sample is retained for independent analysis where the result is disputed.

Here, however, the samples were materially different. The A sample was approximately 6 cm long, while the B sample was approximately 4 cm. More importantly, QML Pathology was not instructed to conduct segmental analysis and tested only the proximal 3 cm, the portion closest to the scalp.

QML detected methylamphetamine at 155 pg/mg but did not detect amphetamine. That concentration was below the reporting threshold applied by VIFM. The two laboratories had therefore examined different lengths and different time periods using different analytical and reporting processes.

It may be tempting to construct a chronology from those results, for example, that one sample captured the beginning or end of a period of drug use. But that would remain an inference. A court or tribunal should not destroy a person’s reputation on the basis of an inference that the evidence cannot reliably establish.

There is no clear basis for concluding that either laboratory made an analytical error. Each laboratory could report only what it detected in the particular portion of hair it received and tested.

The central failure was the collection and handling process. The samples were not equivalent, and the B sample was not accompanied by instructions permitting a like-for-like comparison. That deprived the retesting process of much of its evidentiary value.

The Board ultimately found that Victoria Police had not proved illicit drug use to the required standard. It set aside TDD’s dismissal and ordered compensation of $45,320.14.

The case should therefore not be reduced to a dispute between two laboratories. It is better understood as a costly example of what can happen when a collector ‘wings it’.

The matter of Zisopoulos

Sergeant George Zisopoulos’³ case began after a random NSW Police drug test in 2015 and ultimately resulted in his reinstatement by the NSW Industrial Relations Commission in 2017/2018⁴ and the police appealing, through every court possible for permission to fire him again until finally having their matter dismissed in the High Court of Australia in 2021.⁵

His initial urine screen was non-negative for amphetamine-type substances, opiates and benzodiazepines. Confirmatory testing later attributed those results to medications and found no illicit drugs. Police nevertheless required a hair sample.

Forensic Science South Australia detected low concentrations of MDMA and methylamphetamine. Amphetamine was also identified, but below the laboratory’s reporting limit.⁶

The Commissioner concluded that Zisopoulos had consumed prohibited drugs and removed him under s 181D of the Police Act 1990 (NSW). That conclusion also led the Commissioner to reject Zisopoulos’ denials and question his integrity. In the letter, Mr Scipione (Police Commissioner at the time) wrote:

“I am satisfied that you consumed a prohibited drug, resulting in you testing positive for MDMA and methylamphetamine, in respect of which the drug levels detected are not explicable by any external contamination.”7 

The highlighted section will become a lesson in “less is more”.

The difficulty was that the scientific evidence did not establish ingestion as the only explanation.

The court heard from 5 experts who gave scientific/toxicological and/or pharmacological/medical evidence. The experts were:

·         Dr John Lewis (Toxicologist, for the Police/Respondent)

·         Mr John Farrar (Pharmacologist, contracted by NSW Police)

·         Ms Heather Lindsay (Senior Forensic Scientist, Forensic Science SA)

·         Professor Shanlin Fu (Toxicology Professor, for Zisopoulos/Applicant)

·         Dr Michael Robertson (Pharmacologist/Toxicologist, for Zisopoulos/Applicant)

Dr John Lewis considered environmental contamination less likely, although he accepted that the results showed exposure and did not establish habitual use. FSSA scientist Heather Lindsay considered the results consistent with occasional use or contamination and accepted that contamination could not be excluded.

Dr Michael Robertson and Dr Shanlin Fu considered the low concentrations, negative urine result and brief methanol washing process insufficient to distinguish ingestion from environmental contamination.

John Farrar was a forensic pharmacologist who had worked as a consultant to NSW Police. Zisopoulos relied on Farrar’s opinion that the results did not support a finding of consumption, particularly because the concentrations were low and no metabolite uniquely demonstrating ingestion had been identified.

The Commission did not find that the laboratory had falsely detected the drugs. It found that detection in hair did not prove that Zisopoulos had knowingly consumed them.

That distinction was decisive. If ingestion was not established, neither was the allegation that he had lied about taking drugs.

The Commission set aside his removal, reinstated him and ordered that his service be treated as unbroken.

Conclusion

In both matters, methylamphetamine use may have been one possible explanation for the hair-testing results. However, the detected concentrations were low and, in significant respects, below the interpretive cut-offs recommended by the Society of Hair Testing for amphetamine-type substances.

More importantly, the evidence did not reliably distinguish deliberate ingestion from environmental exposure. The presence of amphetamine did not resolve that difficulty because amphetamine is not a metabolite unique to methylamphetamine ingestion and, in these cases, was either absent or detected below the laboratory’s reporting limit.

The cases of TDD and Zisopoulos therefore demonstrate that the principal danger may not lie in the laboratory analysis itself, but in the institutional leap from a drug being detected in hair to deliberate drug use being proven.

Hair-testing results should be interpreted cautiously and alongside all other available evidence. Greater confidence may arise where concentrations exceed recognised interpretive thresholds, comparable A and B samples produce consistent results, validated decontamination procedures are used, and metabolites or other corroborating evidence support ingestion. No single feature, however, should automatically be treated as conclusive proof of drug use.

REFERENCES 

¹A. Simonis, ‘Sacked police officer wins $45,000 payout over botched drug test bungle’, Herald Sun, 25 July 2026, https://www.heraldsun.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts-victoria/sacked-police-officer-wins-45000-payout-over-botched-drug-test-bungle/news-story/f20854fbd43e7792a4d2cd462bff6088, (accessed 26 July 2026).

²TDD (Police Registration and Services Board, Review Division, R38/2025, Enright DP, Davids and Stefanovic Members, 27 May 2026) [102]

³NB – George Zisopoulos was a police officer who held the rank of Sergeant at the relevant time, but has since been removed from service due to unrelated child pornography charges in 2022.

⁴Zisopoulos v Commissioner of Police [2018] NSWIRComm 1011

⁵Commissioner of Police, New South Wales Police Force v Zisopoulos & Anor [2021] HCASL 39

⁶Zisopoulos v Commissioner of Police [2018] NSWIRComm 1011 [49]

⁷Zisopoulos v Commissioner of Police [2018] NSWIRComm 1011 [2]