Is forensic toxicology an exact science?
No, few things that involve the highly adaptive and diverse human body can be answered in exact terms. Many variables must be taken into account. Forensic toxicology should not be “practiced in a vacuum”; all the evidence should be taken into account by the toxicologist, not just a drug concentration value. When this is done, there is a great deal of ongoing research and historical information on which to base a highly-defensible informed scientific opinion. Sometimes experts will disagree. This can arise from honest differences in opinion, ignorance, or lack of objectivity. One would hope it would always be the first. On the other hand, issues involving the proof of ingestion of drugs or analytical analysis of specimens are based in analytical chemistry and often can be addressed with much more exacting answers.
