Forensic

The main forensic application of pollen analysis is providing associative evidence, i.e. assisting to prove or disprove a link between people and objects with places or with other people. For example, soil on clothing can be analyzed for pollen and compared with control soil samples from the crime scene, or pollen (non-cannabis) in cannabis samples from different people can be used to determine whether or not they have obtained the cannabis from the same source. Other materials include clothing and other fabrics, footwear, twine/rope, air filters, firearms/tools, granulated materials including illicit drugs, unprocessed plant material and processed food and other material such as honey and tobacco, and human and other animal material such as hair, fur and stomach contents. Pollen evidence may also reveal the geographical as well as the local origin of materials, such as determining whether or not illicit drugs material came from overseas.

Forensic pollen analysis is often used by the prosecution. It can be used equally effectively by the defence, either to disprove links alleged by the prosecution or to challenge the prosecution’s palynological evidence.

The following abstracts relate to the use of pollen (and other botanical) analysis in forensic investigations:

• Palynology: its position in the field of forensic science
• Sub-sampling and preparing forensic samples for pollen analysis
• Distortion of teatree stems by twine as a means to determine the number of years that the stems have been used to support cannabis plants
• Forensic Palynology: assessing the weight of the evidence
• Pollen on grass clippings and in soil from clothing and shoes: putting the suspect at the crime scene
• Forensic palynology: variation in the pollen content of soil on shoes and in shoeprints in soil
• Fine resolution of pollen patterns in limited space: differentiating a crime scene and alibi scene seven metres apart
• Forensic palynology: variation in the pollen content of soil surface samples
• Forensic palynology: assessing the value of the evidence
• The filtering effects of various household fabrics on the pollen content of hash oil (cannabis extract)