Some employers choose to build their drug-free workplace programs by leveraging multiple specimen types such as oral fluid, urine, and hair. This diversity allows for accurate, reliable, flexible options that can help to meet a variety of program goals and objectives. Hair drug testing in particular, with its longer window of detection, can detect repetitive drug use for up to 90 days. The ability for a hair drug test to produce a long-term drug use history leads many employers to question whether a hair drug test can consistently and effectively detect one-time drug use.
The simple answer is probably not. Jarod Rowland, LaboratorySupervisor at Quest Diagnostics, specializes in hair testing technology.Rowland explained the strengths and limits of hair tests.
“One of the stand-out benefits of hair drug testing is itssensitivity and its long window of detection of up to 3 months of prior druguse. Because of this, hair testing is often referred to as a ‘lifestyle test.’ However,that long look-back window is not necessarily the best way to detect a singleinstance of drug use in scenarios like post-accident testing. Instead, hairtesting is more informative of a repeated pattern of drug usage during the broaderdetection window. The detection of a single drug-use event is complicated bythe extremely small percentage of the total dose incorporated into the growinghair during that single use event.”
If employers want to detect recent drug use, oral fluid orurine testing may be better suited to provide these results. Because detectionwindows vary by specimen type, some savvy employers incorporate a combinationof specimen types into their policies and programs to more effectively detectdrug use in a variety of circ*mstances. Drug-free workplace programs play an importantrole in helping businesses to combat rising drug use in the workplace. Whenbuilding a program, consider that the different specimen types tout uniquebenefits and a better fit for certain drug testing reasons.
To learn more, watch our webinar as we comb through the science of hair testing or connect with us online.
