Drug Test Cheats to Watch For
Drug Testing Tips are Easy to Find Online
If you operate a drug testing laboratory, you should know that the Internet is flooded with articles and videos on how to cheat drug tests, including urine and hair sample tests. With pre-employment screening growing and an opioid epidemic in full swing, you can be sure that many thousands of Google queries a day are research into how to pass a drug test.
What is the most common advice online?
Diluting a Urine Sample
Near top of everyone’s online list of 5 Best Tips for Cheating a Drug Test is diluting the sample. People are advised to drink plenty of water prior to the test in hopes of bringing drug levels in the sample below the laboratory’s cut-offs for a positive result. Some patients simply try to dilute the sample directly by adding water.
The news that drug testing labs routinely test for dilute samples is not as forthcoming online.
Adulterating the Sample
It is also easy to find advice about spiking urine samples using nitrates and other over-the-counter chemicals, especially when it comes to masking results for THC (marijuana). Because old information often lives side by side with the latest news online, patients may not realize that drug testing technology advances every year, and most adulterants are commonly detectable.
Synthetic Urine
Some people will attempt to go high-tech and arrive at the laboratory equipped with a device holding the same synthetic urine often used in analyzer calibration. Temperature is the key to rejecting a “fake pee” sample, and although these cheaters will often try to maintain the sample at body temperature, it is not as easy as advertised to do so.
Detox Products
A number of detoxification products are available on the market, advertised with abilities to temporarily or even permanently cleanse the body of drug traces, usually aimed at THC. These products are used in conjunction with a “dilution” attempt, masking the activity of loading up on water by adding back factors such as pH, acidity, protein, and color so that test will miss the dilution. This may work occasionally for light drug users and less sensitive tests.
Cheating Hair Follicle Tests
Testing the hair for signs of metabolized drugs is used to determine whether the subject has engaged in long-term drug use. Signs of cannabis can stay in a subject’s hair for a very long time, for example, and these tests are very sensitive.
Most commonly, males will try to stymie this test by shaving their heads or cutting their coif below the 1.5 inches of hair commonly sampled. Other attempts include bleaching, dying, and the use of special shampoos. Some go so far as to attempt to trick the technician with drug free hair extensions. Of course, the head is not the only place from which a hair sample can be taken, and most of these methods of cheating are universally inadequate.
The only certain method of passing a hair test is not to have any drugs in your system for at least 90 days prior to the test.
Don’t Do Drugs
The most effective way for any subject to pass a drug test is to not do drugs. While cheaters will cheat, and there are certain to be new methods advertised to game the system every year, the technology and resources are balanced on the side of business and government, which lose over $400 billion per year due to drug and alcohol abuse.
At Drug Testing Program Management, we work with drug testing labs across the country to supply proven testing supplies, high-sensitivity analyzers, confirmation analyzers, and comprehensive laboratory support, management, and consulting services.
To learn more, call us today at 256-845-1261, or visit our Contact Us page.
