The hair drug test has become a popular method for detecting the kind as well as the volume of drugs in a person’s system. In this way, everyone from medical professionals and lawyers to employers and family members will know if an individual has been taking illegal substances or misusing prescription meds.
What’s a Hair Drug Test?
Well, for starters, it is a test that’s done to determine the patterns of prescription medication misuse and illicit drug use that has taken place over a certain period, usually 90 days, using hair samples from an individual.
Those who do the testing can use these tests to check for a certain type of drug or a variety of drugs or drug classes in someone’s system.
The Importance of the Hair Drug Test
The hair drug test may be necessary for legal, employment, and medical reasons. If you’re applying for a job, your potential employer might require you to undergo this particular test as part of the screening process. Similarly, it could be the method used during a random drug test at the office. In any case, you need to be ready.
The application process for a high-risk job usually includes a hair follicle drug test. Companies will also require their employees to submit to a random drug test every now and then, or in the event following serious incidents in the workplace.
Drug tests usually vary depending on the state. There are regions that prohibit random drug testing and require employers to first provide evidence supporting their reason to have a particular employee undergo testing.
As for healthcare organizations, they may request for a drug test in case a person is subject to substance abuse.
Whatever the case may be, a drug test generally only happens when individuals consent to it.
What You Should Expect During a Hair Drug Test
Be as ready as ever for your drug test by keeping the following things in mind:
1. Substances That Can Be Detected
Hair follicle drug testing is one of the most thorough and efficient methods used to check for illegal substances in your system. These are just some of the common substances the process can detect:
- Phencyclidine (PCP)
- Cocaine
- Marijuana
- Amphetamines, which include methamphetamine, ecstasy, and eve
- Opiates, including heroin, codeine, and morphine
2. What Takes Place
Now that you know what substances are usually tested for, it’s time to get the lowdown on everything that takes place during the test. Note that these tests can happen in a variety of settings, which include your workplace, home, or a healthcare establishment.
Now, for the actual testing. A tester first removes a hair sample from a person’s scalp and sends it to the lab for testing. Professional testers take into consideration the fact that certain foods and prescription meds can possibly lead to inaccurate results or the dreaded “false positives”. In light of this, the hair follicle drug test is a two-step process that eliminates any chance of the outcome being incorrect.
A person normally goes through the ELISA or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay phase of the test, which produces results fairly quickly. If the outcome of this portion of the test ends up being positive, the tester will then have the sample go through confirmatory chromatographic testing to rule out a false-positive outcome.
3. The Results
Now comes the most nerve wracking part, finding out what the results mean. Let’s begin with the result you’re most hoping to hear: negative.
Negative means that the testers were unable to detect the presence of drug metabolites in your sample, or after running the sample through the ELISA screening, there was still no confirmation of the results with Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry or GC-MS.
This is probably the only time you don’t want to hear a “positive” result, as this would mean ELISA testing, as well as the GC-MS, confirmed the presence of drug metabolites in your hair sample.
Then, we have the inconclusive result, which could mean a lot of things—from the sample being contaminated or tampered with to something going wrong with the testing process. In such cases, one may be required to provide a new sample.
Final Thoughts
Drug tests usually leave us with little time to prepare. If you’re in a state or region that doesn’t prohibit random drug tests from taking place, make sure to prepare yourself by finding more about how companies, healthcare organizations, and courts go about the hair drug testing process.
Getting in-depth knowledge about this process and finding out which drugs are usually tested for can go a long way to helping you steer clear of that “positive” result. If you’re caught off guard and are only given a few days to prepare, consider using the Old Style Aloe Toxin Rid shampoo to your advantage.