DrugWipe 5S: the device UK police use for roadside drug tests
The DrugWipe 5S is a saliva-based screening device made by Securetec Detektions-Systeme in Germany. UK police forces use it to test for five drug classes at the roadside — cocaine, cannabis (THC), opiates, amphetamines, and methamphetamine — with a result available in around three minutes. A newer variant, the DrugWipe 6S, adds benzodiazepines to the panel. The device is a screening tool, not analytical evidence. A positive reading is grounds for arrest, but the prosecution’s case relies on a follow-up blood test taken at the police station, not on the swab itself.
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This guide covers what the DrugWipe is, what it detects, how UK officers use it, the alternative devices in service, and what happens after a positive reading. For the wider context, see our complete guide to cocaine and UK roadside drug testing, or speak to a drug driving defence solicitor if you are already facing charges.
What is the DrugWipe 5S and who makes it?
The DrugWipe is a single-use immunoassay swab made by Securetec Detektions-Systeme AG, a German company founded in 1998 and based near Munich. Securetec specialises in rapid drug and explosives detection technology, with the DrugWipe product line dating back to the late 1990s when European police forces first started piloting roadside drug screening as a complement to breathalyser testing.
The “5S” suffix denotes the five-substance saliva panel. There is also a sweat-based variant (the DrugWipe S) used in some workplace contexts, and a 6S version that adds a sixth drug class. UK police forces overwhelmingly use the 5S model. The device is a thin plastic stick with an absorbent collection pad at one end and a readout window further along the body, physically about the size of a fat marker pen.
DrugWipe is not the only roadside screening device on the market, but it has the largest UK footprint. The Home Office Centre for Applied Science and Technology issued type approval for the DrugWipe 5S in 2014, the same year that section 5A of the Road Traffic Act 1988 introduced the specified-limits drug driving offence into English and Welsh law. The two events were not coincidental: the new offence was designed around the kind of evidence the DrugWipe produces.
In international markets, the DrugWipe is also used by police in Germany, France, Austria, Australia, and some US states. Comparison data between jurisdictions feeds back into Securetec’s product development, which is one reason the cut-off thresholds and panel composition have been refined across product generations.
Which drugs does the DrugWipe 5S detect?
The five-substance UK panel covers cocaine, cannabis (specifically THC, the psychoactive cannabinoid), opiates (heroin, morphine, codeine), amphetamines, and methamphetamine. Each substance has its own published cut-off threshold below which the device returns a negative result.
For cocaine, the cut-off is approximately 20 nanograms of cocaine per millilitre of saliva. The threshold sits well above the trace levels associated with passive exposure but below the levels typical of recent recreational use. The screening question the device is built to answer is “has this person consumed enough cocaine recently that a blood test is likely to find them over the 10 microgram per litre benzoylecgonine limit?” — and the saliva cocaine threshold is calibrated to that downstream question rather than to any absolute toxicological figure.
For THC, the cut-off sits around 25 ng/mL of saliva. Cannabis presents a particular challenge for any screening device because chronic users can show detectable THC long after the impairing effects have passed, while occasional users can return negative readings even after recent use due to inter-individual variation in saliva partitioning. The device’s threshold is set to bias towards specificity, it is more likely to miss a real positive than to flag a false one. Detection thresholds for the wider cannabis screening picture are covered alongside our drug driving cannabis solicitors page.
Opiate cut-offs sit at around 40 ng/mL for morphine equivalents. Codeine taken at therapeutic doses can produce a positive opiate reading, which is one reason the device has an asterisk over prescription-medication interactions, see our drug driving prescription medication guide for the full picture on that. Amphetamine and methamphetamine cut-offs are around 50 ng/mL each.
The DrugWipe 6S adds a benzodiazepine panel with a cut-off of approximately 15 ng/mL. Diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam, and the wider benzodiazepine family are increasingly relevant to drug driving prosecutions because they appear in the specified-limits regulations alongside cocaine and cannabis. Adoption of the 6S across UK forces has been gradual; the 5S remains the more widely deployed device in 2026.
What the device does not test for: alcohol (that is the breathalyser’s job), MDMA and other amphetamine analogues at low doses (these can register on the amphetamine panel but with variable sensitivity), ketamine, GHB, novel psychoactive substances, and the wide array of synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists. The five-class panel covers the substances that account for the overwhelming majority of UK drug driving prosecutions, but it is not exhaustive.
How does a UK police officer administer the DrugWipe test?
The roadside protocol takes around three minutes from start to finish. Officers receive training on the procedure as part of the broader Standardised Field Impairment Test framework, and forces publish their internal procedures separately. The general flow is consistent across the UK.
First, the officer establishes the legal basis for the test under section 6 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, which gives a constable in uniform the power to require a preliminary drug test where there is reasonable suspicion that a driver has a drug in their body, has committed a moving traffic offence, or has been involved in an accident. The officer is not required to articulate this basis aloud, but the requirement must exist for the test to be lawful.
Second, the officer asks the driver whether they have eaten, drunk, or smoked anything in the previous ten minutes. If yes, the officer waits, eating and drinking do not chemically affect the assay, but can dilute the sample collection. Smoking can introduce particulates into the oral cavity that interfere with the optical reader.
Third, the absorbent collection pad is drawn across the inside of the driver’s cheek and along the tongue for around thirty seconds to a minute, until the indicator strip on the side of the device shows that an adequate saliva volume has been collected. An insufficient sample is the most common cause of an invalid reading.
Fourth, the device is closed (the absorbent pad makes contact with the reagent chamber), and the officer waits a fixed development time, typically around eight minutes for the DrugWipe 5S read-out. The result appears as a coloured band pattern, which the officer reads either visually or with the optional electronic reader unit.
Fifth, the result is communicated to the driver. A positive reading on any of the five drug classes is sufficient grounds to arrest under section 5A, transport to the custody suite, and require a blood specimen under section 7. The driver is not entitled to a re-test of the saliva at the roadside; the next analytical step is the blood draw at the station.
A note on the legal framing: the preliminary drug test power is separate from the substantive offence of driving with a specified drug above the limit. A positive roadside result is necessary to trigger the arrest, but it is the blood reading on which the prosecution’s case is built. The roadside swab is rarely the focus of a defence challenge for that reason, though refusing the roadside test is itself a separate offence carrying the same penalties as drug driving, so refusal is rarely the right call.
What other roadside drug test devices do UK police use?
The DrugWipe 5S is the most widely deployed device, but it is not the only one in UK service. Two alternative platforms have meaningful deployment.
The Dräger DrugTest 5000 is a German competitor product from medical-equipment manufacturer Drägerwerk. Where the DrugWipe is a single-use disposable device read visually or with an optional electronic reader, the Dräger system uses a dedicated reader unit (about the size of a small briefcase) into which a saliva cassette is inserted. The cassette is single-use; the reader is reusable. The Dräger system tests for the same five drug classes as the DrugWipe 5S, with thresholds that are broadly comparable, though not identical. A handful of forces use the Dräger as primary equipment; others carry it as a secondary device.
The Cozart RapiScan has a historic UK deployment but is less common in 2026. Some forces have moved to the Cozart DDS2, a more recent product from the same manufacturer family. These products use lateral-flow immunoassay chemistry similar to the DrugWipe.
The Crown Prosecution Service has issued guidance on drug driving prosecutions that accepts the major screening devices as valid for the purpose of triggering arrest, with the analytical determination resting on the station blood test. Defence challenges to the choice of device are rare; the substantive evidence is the blood reading and the chain of custody around it.
What no UK force uses at the roadside: GC-MS (gas chromatography-mass spectrometry) analytical devices. These are the gold-standard analytical platforms for drug detection, but they are laboratory equipment, not portable field devices. They form the analytical layer behind the station blood test, not the roadside screen.
How does the DrugWipe compare to home and employer drug test kits?
This is where consumer confusion is genuinely common. Home and employer saliva test kits sold under various brand names (typically online or through occupational health providers) look superficially similar to the DrugWipe but have important differences.
Cut-off thresholds on home kits are typically lower than the DrugWipe, often 5 to 10 ng/mL for cocaine, where the police device sits at around 20 ng/mL. The practical effect: a home test can return positive at concentrations below which a police test would return negative. A worker who tests positive at home before a shift cannot infer they would test positive on the road, and vice versa.
Test chemistry on home kits is also less consistent. Lateral-flow immunoassay accuracy depends on antibody quality, manufacturing controls, and storage conditions. The DrugWipe is type-approved under UK Home Office testing protocols; home kits typically are not subject to equivalent testing.
The sample collection technique varies. A police officer who has been trained on the device gets a more consistent sample than an end user reading a folded instruction leaflet, which affects reliability further. The exact detection windows for cocaine in saliva are similar in principle but produce different practical results across devices because of these threshold and technique differences.
For workplace contexts, the practical reality is that a positive home or employer kit may indicate recent use but says nothing definitive about a future police roadside test. For drivers managing recovery, the safest practical assumption is to count days from last use using the police detection windows, not the home-kit windows.
What happens after a positive DrugWipe reading?
A positive reading on the DrugWipe 5S triggers arrest on suspicion of an offence under section 5A of the Road Traffic Act 1988. The driver is transported to the nearest custody suite, where a healthcare professional draws blood under section 7 of the same Act. The blood sample is split: one tube is sent for laboratory analysis, and the driver is offered a second sealed tube to retain for independent analysis if they wish.
The laboratory analysis is the convincing evidence. If benzoylecgonine (cocaine’s metabolite) is above 10 micrograms per litre in blood, the offence under section 5A is made out. The roadside DrugWipe reading is the trigger; the blood reading is the proof. The full sequence is covered in our guide on what happens after a positive roadside test.
Most defence work in cocaine drug driving cases focuses on the blood analysis rather than the DrugWipe itself: chain of custody, laboratory accreditation, sample integrity, and calibration of the GC-MS instrument used for the determination. The DrugWipe reading rarely appears in court evidence beyond confirmation that the arrest was lawfully grounded.
Where the DrugWipe does become relevant is in the documented edge cases, calibration drift, expired devices, sample collection errors, and the well-known cluster of documented false-positive cases that have produced withdrawn charges. These remain the minority of cases, but they are also why a strong defence starts with a full audit of every step in the evidence chain rather than assuming the test result is unchallengeable.
If you have been arrested after a positive DrugWipe reading, the right time to instruct a drug driving solicitor is before the first court date. Application windows for independent analysis of the retained blood sample and other procedural defences close quickly.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Understanding offences and process helps you make informed decisions about your future.
How much does a DrugWipe 5S cost the UK police?
Securetec does not publish a public retail price for the DrugWipe 5S. Procurement contracts are negotiated by individual police forces or framework agreements run through Bluelight Commercial and equivalent purchasing bodies. Published procurement figures from previous years have put the unit cost in the low to mid-teens of pounds per single-use test, with the optional electronic reader as a separate capital purchase. The genuine total cost per administered test, factoring in officer time and follow-up testing, is substantially higher than the device cost alone.
Where is the DrugWipe manufactured?
The DrugWipe product line is manufactured in Germany by Securetec Detektions-Systeme AG, based near Munich. Securetec runs its production, quality control, and research operations from the same German site, which is a factor in the product’s CE marking and the Home Office type approval covering UK roadside use.
Does the DrugWipe 5S test for benzodiazepines?
The DrugWipe 5S does not include a benzodiazepine panel. The 5S covers cocaine, cannabis (THC), opiates, amphetamines, and methamphetamine. The newer DrugWipe 6S adds benzodiazepines as a sixth panel, with a cut-off of approximately 15 ng/mL. UK adoption of the 6S has been gradual, and the 5S remains the more widely deployed device in 2026.
How long does a DrugWipe test take to read?
The full procedure takes around three minutes from initial sample collection to a readable result, with a fixed development time of approximately eight minutes if officers wait for the maximum sensitivity readout. The roadside encounter as a whole, from initial stop to communicated result, typically lasts ten to fifteen minutes once the driver has provided a sample.
Can the DrugWipe distinguish between cocaine and crack?
No. The cocaine panel detects cocaine alkaloid regardless of the form in which it was consumed. Crack (freebase cocaine) and powdered cocaine hydrochloride both metabolise to the same parent compound and the same primary metabolite (benzoylecgonine), so neither the saliva screen nor the station blood test distinguishes between routes of administration. The criminal offence under section 5A is the same regardless of preparation.
Is the DrugWipe approved by the UK Home Office?
Yes. The DrugWipe 5S received type approval from the Home Office Centre for Applied Science and Technology in 2014, the same year the specified-limits drug driving offence came into force under section 5A of the Road Traffic Act 1988. The device retains its current type approval status as of 2026 and remains the most widely deployed roadside drug screening tool across UK police forces.
Does the DrugWipe test for cocaine itself or benzoylecgonine?
The DrugWipe 5S screens for cocaine itself, the parent alkaloid, in saliva. This is a different chemistry from the station blood test, which measures benzoylecgonine, the metabolite, because the 10 microgram per litre legal limit under the Specified Limits Regulations 2014 is set on the metabolite. The shift from parent-drug screening at the roadside to metabolite quantification at the station is one reason the saliva result is not conclusive evidence.
What’s the difference between the DrugWipe 5S and the 6S?
The 5S panel covers five drug classes: cocaine, cannabis (THC), opiates, amphetamines, and methamphetamine. The 6S adds a sixth: benzodiazepines, with a cut-off of approximately 15 ng/mL. Both devices use the same saliva collection technique, the same physical format, and the same broad detection chemistry. UK police forces have been adopting the 6S gradually since its release; the 5S remains the more commonly deployed device as of 2026.
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