How
Long Do Toxins Remain In Hair?
In plain English,
toxins can be detectable in your hair for as long as your
hair is. This basically means that if you used toxins 6
months ago and still have hair on your head from 6 months
ago, it will be detectable in a random drug test.
Hair drug testing is
a little more complicated than other forms of testing.
Going back 90 days is the industry standard. 90 days is
the approximate time frame indicated by an inch and a half
of hair. When a lab is testing a random drug test hair
sample, if the sample is longer than an inch and a half,
the lab will cut it down to an inch and a half.
Hair testing
generally uses 1-1/2 inches of hair, representing about 3
months’ growth (head hair normally grows at about 1/2
inch per month). It is generally accepted that in order to
test positive, the drug in question must have been used 3
times or more within the window of the random drug test.
After a drug is used, it takes about 7-10 days for the
hair containing the drug to grow out of the scalp enough
to be cut. Therefore, the random drug test hair test will not include drugs
used in the week prior to the test. The drug remains in
the hair, growing out much the same as hair dye and
"dark roots". Eventually that hair containing
the toxin is cut off with normal haircuts which then
permits you to pass a random drug test.
With body hair, it
takes a longer time for the drugs to be detected because
body hair grows slowly. The growth of body hair does is
not as fast as the growth of head hair. So it's hard to
determine that it takes X amount of days for drugs to
enter body hair. The nature of body hair also means that
if body hair is tested by a lab, the detection time will
be longer. An inch and a half of body hair represents a
period of 6 months to 1 year. It's a longer, vaguer time
frame and someone submitting body hair to a random drug
test should be aware of this.
False
Positives
False positive
results can be attributed to human error and sample
contamination when administering a random drug test. In
addition, there are a number of controlled and
uncontrolled substances that will cause a false positive
result; these are some of the reasons why labs will
immediately split your specimen into two samples. Below
are some of the many substances to avoid prior to taking a
random drug test. Take this very seriously, your
employer or probation officer certainly will. False
positives run high with the EMIT (aka dip stick aka
"on the spot" type test), and in some cases this
is all it takes to send you to the unemployment office or
a parole/probation revocation hearing. National
laboratories state that the EMIT test is wrong 25% to 30%
of the time and can result in false positives from legal
substances up to 38% of the time when administering a
random drug test!
Poppy
seeds: Although an extremely concentrated amount of
poppy seeds are needed to obtain a false positive for
opiates on the EMIT, it is possible when taking a random
drug test.
Dental/Medical
treatments: Cain-based products, especially
Novocain, have been known to cause false positives for
cocaine when taking a random drug test. Some legal
products actually contain small amounts of illegal
chemicals. All urine tests, including GC/MS will indicate
a positive result because the metabolites derived from the
substance are identical to the metabolites of the illegal
drug.
Diet aids
containing phenylpropanolamine (Brand names include
Dexatrim and Accutrim). Asthma medications such as Marax,
Bronkaid tablets, and Primatine Tablets can cause false
positives when taking a random drug test.
Ibuprofen is a common
pain reliever that, even in low dosages, can cause a false
THC positive on the EMIT random drug test. This has supposedly been
corrected but this has not been 100% confirmed. Here are some other common ones as well: Advil,
Nuprin, Mediprin, Motrin, Bayer Select Pain Relief
Formula, Excedrin IB Caplets, Genpril, Midol 200, Pamprin,
Trendar Cramp Relief Formula, Cramp End Tablets, Medipren,
Rufin, Naproxen, Aleve, Keroprofen and Orudis KT.
Cold
remedies, diet pills, hay fever remedies and pain
relievers: In blind testing, decongestants and many
diet aids resulted in false positives for amphetamine use
in one third of all random drug test samples given to 40
leading substance testing laboratories. There are more
than 300 over-the-counter drugs that can cause false
positives on the EMIT and new drugs being introduced every
day. Some others include: Cold and allergy meds that
contain ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, propylephedrine,
phenylephrine, or desoxyepherine (Brand names include
Nyquil, Contact, Sudafed, Allerest 12 hour, A.R.M.,
Triaminic 12, Ornade, Tavist-D, Dimetapp, Sinex,
Neosynephrine, Actifed, Bayer Select Maximum Strength
Sinus Pain Relief Caplets, Contact Non-Drowsy Formula,
Dristan Cold Caplets, Maximum Strength Sudafed Sinus
Caplets, Maximum Strength Tylenol Sinus Gelcaps, Sinus
Excedrin Extra Strength Caplets, Drixoral Cold and Flu,
Robitussin Cold and Flu, Vicks Inhaler and Afrin)
Antibiotics:
Certain antibiotics such as penicillin and tetracycline
can cause false positives for heroin and cocaine when
taking a random drug test.
Read more about all types of
random
drug test types...
