Urine Drug Screening
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Urine drug screening has been a mainstay
for several years now. Employers, the court system, the police
department and schools have all used urine drug screening
for the War on Drugs. Urine drug screening is an effective,
yet invasive method for detecting drugs in one's system. Privacy
advocates for years have tried to call a halt to urine drug
screening since direct or indirect observation of the screening
process may cause anxiety, embarrassment and humiliation in
those being screened.
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Many have retaliated against the urine drug screening process by
tried to beat or cheat the system. Drug-free clean human urine samples
and delivery systems may be purchased online. Detox drinks, adulterants
or masking agents also may be purchased and used to skew the results
in favor of those being tested.
Parents have also been turning to urine drug screening tests to
see if their teens are on drugs or because of a court order that
random testing must occur as part of probation of a youth. Teens
are wise these days and may also use the same methods as adults
to cheat the test results.
One problem with the urine drug screening process has been an inordinate
amount of false positive results. For instance, those taking Zoloft
for depression may show up as positive for benzodiazepines. This
kind of false positive could wreck a reputation, a family life and
/ or a career. Some of the other legal substances that can cause
false positives include antibiotics such as Penicillin and Tetracycline,
cold remedies, diet pills, allergy medications, pain relievers such
as Ibuprofen, dental and medical treatments such as Novocain and
poppy seeds.
Urine drug screening began in the U. S. in 1970 as a way
to curb drug abuse in the military in Viet Nam. An accident
on the carrier Nimitz revealed that many sailors and airmen
were taking illicit drugs. In 1986, all Federal employees
were mandated to accept the newly developed governmental drug-screening
program. Urine was designated as the only acceptable specimen
for drug screening and was made law in 1988. Using urine specimens
was found to be less invasive than blood samples and focused
everyone on urinary metabolites and set drug cut-off concentrations
appropriate for urine only.
Today, more employers are turning to using hair samples for
drug screening since direct observation of the taking of the
samples in less invasive that urine or blood samples. Because
the wheels turn slowly with any large bureaucracy, the U.
S. government has been slow to turn away from urine drug screening
to less invasive methods. Even though there are cheating methods
for hair samples as well, they're less likely to succeed that
cheating on a urine test. Only time will tell how quickly
urine drug testing is abandoned in favor of other less privacy-sensitive
methods.
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