A first-of-its-kind device that can detect fentanyl and other drugs on the spot will soon be used to assist in San Francisco’s public intoxication arrests, the latest addition to what has been a yearlong, multiagency crackdown on the city’s open-air drug markets.

The Dräger DrugTest 5000, a system that tests saliva samples for drugs like amphetamines, cocaine and opiates, has for years been marketed to law enforcement as a roadside tool in DUI investigations.

But at the onset of the city’s clampdown last year, which included a surge of arrests of drug users as well as dealers, San Francisco police’s director of crime strategies Ryan Kao began wondering whether the Dräger system could be put to a different use.

He called a friend at the German-based company to ask whether the device tested for fentanyl, the highly addictive synthetic opioid found in the majority of the city’s record 800 overdose deaths in 2023.

It didn’t, the friend said at the time. Do you want it to?

“And I said, ‘Yes, we do want it to do fentanyl. There’s a large fentanyl problem in the United States, and I think there’s a market” for such a device, Kao said in a recent interview. “And they said, ‘Well, maybe we could adapt it.’ ”

Like many other law-enforcement agencies in the United States and Europe, San Francisco police already have a contract with Dräger, which they use to collect saliva as evidence after arrests. But they will be the first to field-test a new prototype that the company’s scientists developed in the past several months, specifically for the department. Through a Dräger partnership, San Francisco police are testing the devices free of charge, with the intent to report back to the manufacturer about its results.

The system consists of two parts: A handheld unit that resembles a pregnancy test, and a box-shaped analyzer about the size of a kitchen air fryer. The pilot program includes 100 cartridges and two analyzers, which will accompany officers in patrol cars.

Similar to cases involving DUI suspects, officers investigating public intoxication must receive consent before administering the drug test.

If consent is granted, the officer or the individual will rub a  foam applicator around the mouth, collecting a saliva sample that’s then inserted into the applicator. Over the span of a few minutes, the analyzer will test for eight types of drugs: fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine, opiates such as heroin, oxycodone, methadone, benzodiazepines like Xanax, and ketamine.

City leaders’ decision to target drug users as well as dealers for arrests has emerged as perhaps the most controversial part of San Francisco’s Drug Market Agency Coordination Center, or DMACC, which launched in 2023.

While supporters credit the policing for helping to clear the Tenderloin and SoMa neighborhoods’ most brazen drug markets, critics including the Public Defender’s Office have likened its tactics to the country’s War on Drugs, and say the crackdown has failed to help people struggling with addiction.

In the year since DMACC’s inception, law-enforcement officials have arrested 1,284 suspected drug users and 1,008 suspected dealers, according to recent city figures.

“The fact that police are doubling down on trying to arrest our way out of a public health crisis shows how disconnected our city is right now from decades of social findings that arresting people for drug use is harmful, wasteful and counterproductive,” said Angela Chan, Assistant Chief Attorney at the Public Defender’s Office.

Chan said more drug-user arrests will lead to increases in crowded jail populations, more court delays and higher caseloads for an already stretched staff of public defenders.

Kao agreed that the system will likely boost arrests, given that it will help officers be more precise and confident about who they decide to detain.

Prior to the Dräger roll-out, police relied mostly on subjective or circumstantial evidence when arresting people for public intoxication. This could include body language, certain behaviors or the presence of drug paraphernalia.

“In an age where we have so much more scrutiny on our officers, this allows them to say, ‘Like, you know what? I’m not just making it up. I have something that’s scientifically” backed, Kao said.