THE LITTLE LAB THAT UNCOVERS BIG SECRETS
Hair strands from round the world under microscope
HIDDEN away in an ordinary business park is an extraordinary laboratory that changes lives, careers and court cases around the world with the evidence it produces.
A few strands of hair is all it takes for experts at Cansford Laboratories in Car- diff to show whether someone has taken – or been unwittingly given – any of 120 drugs and compounds including canna- bis, cocaine, Ecstasy, valium, alcohol, steroids and opiates such as heroin.
Hair retains secrets longer than urine, blood or breath samples.
Depending on the length of the hair examined drug use – and patterns of drug use – from as little as a week ago to as much as a year ago can be detected.
On their website the lab’s founders and owners Dr Lolita Tsanaclis and John Wicks describe hair as providing “a black box recording of drug and alcohol use”.
The techniques mean drug use can be narrowed down to as little as a 10-day window.
Results from the test they pioneered have been used to win court cases covering everything from child neglect to animal cruelty as well as divorce and assault.
Cansford now carries out 1,500 tests every month – around 16,000 a year – for clients including lawyers, government departments, security services, the military, employers, individuals, sports bodies, athletes and celebrities from Wales, the UK, and abroad.
Lolita and John founded the lab after pioneering testing human hair for drug use in Cardiff in 1993 and opening what was then the first hair testing lab in the UK.
Some 25 years on, they now have 22 staff in Cardiff, 100 in Sao Paulo, one in Canada, and 45 hair collectors around the UK.
Clients, some of whom are household name celebrities, are keen not to be identified, but John said the list also includes the General Medical Council, Welsh social services departments, and even a number of well-known English public schools.
And it may seem strange, but no official bus or taxi driver in Brazil can work in that country without first submitting a sample of their hair for testing at this small lab tucked away in Pentwyn and having it declared drug-free.
The sensitive nature of their work means Cansford cannot say too much about exactly why clients want hair tested but, in short, it works with anyone trying to find out whether drugs, including alcohol, have been taken or administered and those who want to prove they are clean.
This even includes animals, with everything from a tiger to a hamster tested here.
The tiger fur sample came from a wildlife park abroad to find out whether the big cat was being sedated while samples of fur from greyhounds and hair from horses are regular work as clients hunt for evidence of performance-enhancing drugs or sabotage in the racing world.
A hamster fur sample was part of an animal cruelty case and tested positive for MDMA, resulting in a conviction.
Lolita and John claim their technique is the most sophisticated and exact way to find evidence that somebody has ingested drugs and pinpoint when that happened.
Their prices range from as little as £60 to several thousand depending on how many sections of hair are being tested and for how many drugs.
The pair believe their lab is the fastest in the world for hair testing, with customers promised results within three days but 80% returned within as little as 24 hours.
And while the building in Pentwyn Business Park hums with hitech machinery, the basic process is straightforward and begins with a pair of scissors, a plastic bag and some tin foil.
Cansford samplers in the UK or abroad cut samples of hair under strict conditions to ensure it is not tampered with before being sent away.
These samplers take about 20