Myths Regarding Drug Testing

Remember Marion Jones; the famous female athlete who was stripped of all her records and her 5 Olympic medals dating till the year 2000 after she was found guilty of lying to the court regarding substance abuse? This is a typical real life case of substance or drug abuse which can later wreak havoc in your life. Upon drug testing to find the truth, such high profile people end up being under public scrutiny and are disgraced. Despite advancement in technical as well as medical testing methodologies, people, especially athletes, continue to take drugs or 'performance enhancers' as they prefer to call them. There are quite a few myths going around which many of us feel will save us during testing for substance abuse, but they do not seem to actually work at all. Nevertheless, here are a few common myths and misconceptions about drug testing:

Vinegar will help you pass:
This can be stated as partially true. Due to the intake of vinegar, the pH of your urine or your blood will lower considerably. Due to the concept of protonation, the drugs belonging to the family of '–amine' groups will be more soluble than before and will be more easily flushed out of the system. This method might sound good, but it still cannot guarantee safety from failing the drug test. Vinegar will also make your urine smell strange, which drug test collectors are trained to notice.

Consuming Poppy Seeds will come up positive for opium/opiates:
Contrary to the popular notion, it would require somewhere around 4-5 bagels with poppy seeds to test positive for opiates during drug testing. This also varies a lot on where the seeds come from; different countries produce different potencies of poppy seeds. However, other food items such a poppy seed laced pastry can sometimes spell trouble if consumed in large quantities. The popular belief is that only opium addicts would test positive for opiates during testing; but sometimes, people who are innocent get in trouble due to their careless food habits.

Second hand exposure to Marijuana will make you come back positive:
Many times, people profess complete ignorance about the use of substance abuse such as marijuana, cocaine, etc. However, when they are found to be guilty on these counts, they begin trying to explain themselves, telling stories of being in parties where marijuana or cocaine was used. It is a myth that second-hand cocaine smoke can produce a positive result. This is technically not possible. To make this scenario true, one would have to sit in an un-ventilated area for hours and be continuously exposed to the second-hand cocaine smoke.

However, hair testing can spell doom as the minute particles suspended in the air can be deposited on your hair too.

Vitamin B3 or B6 will help you pass the test:
There are also myths regarding ingesting Niacin/Vitamin B3 or Vitamin B6 or any B vitamin complex. The thought behind this is that these vitamins replace essential nutrients lost when using drugs and also help to give very diluted urine a more yellow and normal color during drug testing. But these claims are not true. In fact, too much Niacin consumption can be dangerous and have adverse side effects as well. Many people are still of the opinion that drinking your own urine will help you dodge the doping officials and/or the drug testing team. There are many websites that claim these reports to be true, but to date, there is no legitimate scientific evidence proving this to be true.

'Performance enhancers' or drugs sometimes seem to work well on the field, but is an unethical means of gaining supremacy over others in the arena. During drug testing, the samples of your urine, hair, blood, sweat and/or saliva are taken and then mixed with different chemicals to show the presence or absence of drugs of any sort. Of course, there have been times when even the coaches have been accused of giving drugs to their players under the guise of 'medicine'. This practice is not advocated and can mean big trouble for both the coach and the player, even the ones who were unaware of drug use. To sum it all up, the players should always build up their own strength and endurance of the body and not rely on performance enhancers in any way to showcase their talent. Recreational drug users may not gain any performance enhancement form drug use, but their drug abuse is just as dangerous and serious.


(Drug Testing)

Drug Testing: Drug content screening

Drug testing is a systematic scientific procedure for detection of the absence or presence of illegal drug content in the human body. It is a useful service for society, in order to keep it safe and secure. There are multiple aspects of drug testing that one must go through in order to understand it completely. It is basically for the general safety of people and it helps them understand that an addiction can often lead them towards death. This service is used in multiple sectors ensuring that there are no people abusing drugs that can interfere with their own safety or the safety of others. However, drug addicted people are investing in new ways to inject or consume drugs without leaving any trace of them. Therefore, scientists are developing multiple methods of drug testing to ensure the accuracy of the result.

Different areas where drug testing is used:

There are many areas where drug testing is used to ensure safety. There are variable conditions when an individual may have to go through the drug testing process:

• School children – It's alarming but true, children are abusing drugs at younger and younger ages. Therefore, many school administrators conduct drug testing to check that their children and students are safe. In addition t schools, some parents also use this service to ensure that their kids are safe from this addiction.

• Employment screening - This is the most important sector of drug testing. Most organizations adopt this service to ensure that their business is free from drug and alcohol abuse. In order to be accepted for a job, people must go through the drug testing process and pass the test without issue. This is called pre-employment drug testing.

• Law enforcement – There are several conditions wherein the court orders a person to go through the testing procedures. Moreover, in some cases police or other respective authorities conduct the tests.

• Athletics – This drug screening is the most common procedure that every national or international athlete must go through. It is an invaluable tool that helps determine substance abuse. No athlete can move forward in their sport without passing this test.

Methods of drug testing:

There are multiple substantiated methods that are used by the experts to detect drug content in the human body. However, each method has its own advantages.

Hair testing: In recent times, this method of specimen collection has been gaining popularity in due to its highly accurate results and long detection window. Typically hair drug testing can detect most drug use as far back as 3 months.

Urine testing: This is the best method when compared to blood testing, but this method does not produce the history of drug abuse like the hair testing. With urine testing, typically drug abuse is only detectable if the use was recent (approximately a week). However, in order to test the current status of the drug content, this is the best and most convenient method of conducting drug screening.

Blood testing: This method is the least accurate and least ordered way to collect specimens for drug testing. Most technicians only use this method to monitor drug use in the last few hours. However, it does have some benefits as it provides a short-term history of drug abuse, but accuracy of the result deteriorates.

All of these are specific significant methods of drug screening used by technicians to detect drug abuse. There are many labs available that offer drug testing services to the public at nominal rates. You can easily compare and identify the best lab in terms of your expected service. Usually, you would be expecting a lab incorporated with:

• Instant delivery of reports
• Personalized service
• Privacy and confidentiality
• Nominal rate of the service
• Assurance of accurate results
• Hassle-free process of appointment
• The option of Anonymous testing

These are the most commonly expected services from drug testing service providers.

(Drug Testing)