AN Assembly minister and a Gwent AM tested positive for cannabis yesterday at a voluntary session des-igned to show the capability of a hi-tech drugs testing machine.

Edwina Hart, social justice minister at the National Assem-bly, had not been using drugs, but the result showed that her hands had been cross-contaminated with traces of the substance, from door handles, money or other public areas.

She said: "You could pick it up from anywhere, couldn't you?

"It can come out of cash, out of a cashpoint, a beer mat, or anything else. It is a very sophisticated system."

Conservative AM for South Wales East Will-iam Graham, who arranged for police to demonstrate the mach-ine at the Assembly, also tested positive for cannabis.

He said: "I can't think where I could have got it from. I am not a drug user, I'm even averse to taking aspirin. I think I must have picked up traces of cannabis from a bank note.

"Anything that deters people from taking drugs is a good thing.

"If people know this thing exists, then they will know that they might get caught."

Assembly members lined up to have swabs of their hands tested by the £40,000 Gwent Pol-ice Ion Track narcotics machine, and Jonathan Morgan and Owen Jon Thomas both came up clean.

Nick Bourne, leader of the Welsh Conservatives, also got a clear result. The Ion Track mach-ine can detect traces of drugs or explosives several days after a person has come into contact with them, even if they have washed their hands.

A swab paper is wiped over a person's hands and then placed into the machine, which then analyses it for drugs including cocaine, heroin, Ecstasy and cannabis.

The resulting reading indicates how many drugs are present in the sample and at what levels.

It is so sensitive it can detect the equivalent in drugs of a grain of salt in an Olympic-sized swimming-pool.

It has been used by Gwent Police to test people at a nightclub, and to detect traces of drugs in a house where the actual substances have already been re-moved.

Of the 800 people queuing at Zanzibar, on Stow Hill, one Friday night, about 90 people were pulled at random to undertake a swab test on their hands.

Of these, 38 people gave positive readings. No-one refused the test.