[giantg2]

"The law is supposed to be about reasonable doubt."

That's what you'll be evaluated in court with (or should be).

To arrest or get a warrant, it's only that the law has been broken by a preponderance of the evidence to meet probable cause. Although it seems that the courts aren't even holding it up to this standard very often.

"It might seem weird to carry a bag of creatine, but it much weirder to be carrying 20"

Very true, and it's absolutely a spectrum. One thing to point out is that most departments require police to make a "thorough investigation". If there's a valid reason then they should be able to confirm it. If stuff sounds fishy, they can investigate further. A lot of the failures talked about in the article are not strictly test failures - they're failures of judgement or knowledge by not relying on other facts or by relying too heavily on the tests.

[godelski]

> they're failures of judgement or knowledge by not relying on other facts or by relying too heavily on the tests.

I think this is well put and I really appreciate your response. I generally agree and I'm generally one that is quite critical of metrics. But I do not see this article as solely about a failure of test, but the interconnectedness and reliance on poor metrics rather than using them to update priors.

Particularly why I like the last sentence is I find this being one of the key points that distinguishes us humans from machines. Because we are able to do such things as "I see the rules, I understand the rules" and more importantly "I understand why the rules were made, and while this violates the rules it was clearly not something the rules were intended to prevent." Because rules __are__ made to be broken. Because rules are imperfect. Tests are imperfect. Literally everything is imperfect. We have a strong desire for order and perfection which helps us decrease the noise but I think we all could do a bit better at embracing the chaos a bit more.

[LorenPechtel]

Depends on the stuff.

20 small bags of creatine for a 20 day trip makes perfectly good sense. Leave your measuring equipment at home.

And they are test "failures"--the problem is the field tests are not specific enough and will react to innocent materials. (Same as fertilizer or glycerin setting off the bomb sniffer at the airport. Lots of skin products contain glycerin.) And expect any competent drug smuggler to know the cross reactions of the stuff they are carrying--thus what they say isn't really relevant.

[godelski]

> 20 small bags of creatine for a 20 day trip makes perfectly good sense. Leave your measuring equipment at home.

It's also worth noting that in high likelihood you'd have additional context around this. Namely luggage or other such travel accessories. Because it is unlikely that you would create such daily allocations and then carry them on your person. It's more likely to leave them wherever you're staying. Everything is still likelihood based (dependent on model we use, which is why I specify likelihood).

[alan-hn]

How does one get to where they are staying? Do people selling drugs never have luggage?