Know What Are Things That Substantial Affect The Drug Test Results
Introduction:
When you are an employer wanting to conduct a drug testing of your employees, you just want to know whether or not the person has consumed drugs in a given period. A simple yes or no is what you’re looking for when you ask for the results of a drug test.
“Yes, the person has taken drugs” “No, the person hasn’t taken drugs” are the answers we very commonly seek. However, that is never the case.
A binary result doesn’t apply in the case of drug tests. Here is a list of things that can affect the judgements that come after having a look at the drug test results.
The drug results being positive only suggest a short time period during which the person was using illicit drugs and these results can easily be interpreted in a hundred different manners.
So, what we are trying to tell you here is to weigh in all the factors before coming to a conclusion and here’s a guide to doing the same. We have prepared you a list of factors that could affect this process. Read on!
The interpretation
A toxicology should only be allowed the access and the freedom to interpreting these drug test results. Anyone can read a report but these people have a degree to actually tell us whether or not these numbers tell us something.
Hence, rely on an agency that only brings in the experts to interpret the results.
No lawyer can do judgement to a drug test because they are only used to getting answers in a “black or white” manner when it comes to drug results. However, that is never the case and the results can be in a grey area for all you’d care.
Sample collection
Sample collection process is the most crucial process and the chain of custody that follows after it is yet another step that needs to be standard and secure for a drug test result document to be considered for its validity.
Evidences get tampered with and you have no reason to believe that it didn’t happen in your case. If you are relying on a drug testing agency, make sure you choose the right one because that could make it or break it.
Have a look at their SOP for sample collection and sample custody chain.
Time of collection and the surrounding environment
The only thing that applies to these test results is the chemistry of the reactions. In chemistry, there is a consequence to every action done to the chemical in question.
High or low temperature, exposure to sunlight or any other chemical, etc. could be some factors that change your test results completely.
Speaking of surrounding environment, you also have to make sure that the environment of the body part you are taking the sample from doesn’t mess with the drug results. E.g., if you have dyed or bleached your hair, the test results would be a lot different in qualitative and quantitative measures.
This is more impactful when the samples are vulnerable to tampering. Liquid specimen is more affected as compared to specimen like hair strands.
In order to reduce the time between occurrence of an event, go for an agency that offers 24-hour drug testing.
Hydration or dilution
Now here comes the time to question the specimen collection procedure. If you are collecting a urine sample, how would you be so sure that it wasn’t diluted.
Trust a laboratory that would check and notice if the concentration of normal components of a sample are off.
Say you took a urine sample and the drug is so low in amount it doesn’t cross the cut-off amount. But you have a look at the creatinine levels and they are way below the normal levels.
What would that mean? It would mean that the person diluted the sample to generate a false-negative result.
Consider the timelines
Do not look in the wrong places for evidence. If you want to know about drug usage that happened days or weeks or months ago, there’s no way an oral drug test result is ratting out the person. Hair or nail testing is the right way to go for such tests.
But if you want to look at a recent drug use, go ahead and use some saliva samples to confirm your suspicion. Say you need to do a reasonable suspicion testing, you have to collect samples like saliva.
Conclusion:
This is just a glimpse into how a drug test could be affected by a lot of things. It could happen at any phase of the testing. Before choosing the kind of testing, during the testing, after testing or after receiving the test results.
The point here is that, one should rely on experts vetted in this industry and that would be the most useful advice you’ll ever get if you are looking to conduct a drug test for your employees or anywhere in general.
24/7 Onsite drug testing is one of the most experienced and efficient agencies for drug testing in the port Corpus Christi.
