Yes. California’s definition of drug paraphernalia excludes testing equipment used to check a substance for contaminants or for controlled substances such as fentanyl, so fentanyl test strips are not drug paraphernalia under state law. That exclusion covers the strips, not any drug you test with them.

Test strips are outside the paraphernalia definition

Health and Safety Code section 11014.5 defines “drug paraphernalia” for the state’s controlled substances law. Paragraph (a)(8) lists testing equipment for identifying or analyzing controlled substances, but only “except as otherwise provided in subdivision (d).” Subdivision (d) then says drug paraphernalia “does not include any testing equipment designed, marketed, intended to be used, or used, to test a substance” for contaminants, toxic substances, hazardous compounds, or other adulterants, or for controlled substances “that include, without limitation, fentanyl, ketamine, gamma hydroxybutyric acid, or any analog of fentanyl.”

A fentanyl test strip is that kind of equipment. The paraphernalia-possession statute, Health and Safety Code section 11364(a), is also aimed at a different kind of object: an opium pipe or a device “used for unlawfully injecting or smoking” certain controlled substances. A test strip is used to test a substance, not to inject or smoke it.

Fentanyl test strips are named in the law

Since 2025, the Health and Safety Code has had an article on controlled substance checking services. Its definitions section, Health and Safety Code section 11300(c), says “controlled substance checking equipment” includes, but is not limited to, “fentanyl test strips, other controlled substance or controlled substance analog immunoassay strips,” colorimetric reagents, and laboratory instruments such as spectrometers.

Using a drug checking service has its own protections

Some readers do not test at home; they bring a sample to a checking service. The law treats that separately:

  • Section 11364(c) says the paraphernalia-possession offense “does not apply to an individual obtaining controlled substance checking services” as described in that article.
  • Checking services are run by eligible providers listed in section 11300(d): syringe exchange providers, research institutions, colleges and universities, and community or nonprofit organizations working with public health departments or those other providers.
  • Under section 11304(a), an individual possessing a controlled substance while obtaining checking services from a provider is not subject to criminal penalty or investigation “based solely on the individual’s utilization of a controlled substance checking service.” That protection does not apply to anyone using a service “in bad faith.”
  • Under section 11305, using a checking service cannot be the basis for, or a fact contributing to, reasonable suspicion or probable cause for a search or seizure.

What the exclusion does not cover

Section 11014.5(d) and section 11364(c) do not make any controlled substance legal to possess. If officers find drugs along with test strips outside a checking service, nothing in these exclusions protects the drugs, even though the strips themselves are not a basis for a paraphernalia charge. The protection in section 11304 is tied to using a checking service provider, not to carrying your own strips.

If you were charged

If a paraphernalia charge rests on test strips or other checking equipment, compare the items listed in the police report with the current definition in section 11014.5(d). The Law Offices of David S. Chesley’s drug paraphernalia defense team can review which items were seized and how each charge was worded. Call (800) 755-5174.