Drug testing is now a requirement for everything from pre-employment screening to living in a group home with troubled teens. As such, drug test manufacturers have made a variety of simple-to-use tests. Some can be used at home, while others may need to be taken to a clinic and tested by nursing laboratory staff. The following four drug tests are the ones commonly used.
Urine in a Cup, with Test Strips
In this case, you are handed (or you hand someone) a sterile urine sample cup. After the sample is collected, the lid is screwed back on and the cup is handed back to nursing staff or you collect the sample from the person being tested. Special test strips are used to detect marijuana, methamphetamine (meth), cocaine, heroine, and a few other street drugs. If the colors on the test strips change, the person is a user, or has recently used. If there is little to no color change on the strips, the person is cleared. This is an "at-home" test commonly used in rehabilitation CBRFS and "halfway" houses.
Urine in a Cup in a Clinic
When you go to a clinic for drug testing, you are given a sample cup to catch the urine. the cup is then sealed and placed in a secret cupboard near the toilet. The staff on the opposite side open the cabinet, take the sample and create a tray of samples. Each of those little samples is then tested for some other drug by dropping special drops into each sample. Color changes indicate a use of the drug for the sample identified. No color changes in any of the smaller samples indicates a "clean" person.
Blood Sample
Blood samples for drug testing are often a better predictor for drug use as it takes some time for most drugs to be metabolized and moved out of the body. Alcohol, for example, is often a better indicator of blood alcohol level than a breathalyzer test. The blood sample has to be drawn in a clinic to avoid any contamination issues that would taint the blood and produce a false positive.
Hair Sample
Realizing that some drugs actually make an appearance in the shafts and outgrowths of people's hair, a pre-employment drug test may include a hair sampling. The nurse will cut some hairs from a spot on your head where the sample cut cannot be seen. The hairs are then exposed to a solution to detect certain drugs. Like the other tests, changes in color of the fluids help identify the types of drugs, if any, that the user might have taken in the last one to six months.
To learn more about drug testing, reach out to a company like Physical Exams, Inc.
