Another drug test question

Women have been tested for pregnancy when they thought they were only taking a drug test:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/court/nsco1396.htm

diamud you got it backwards. The case you supplied was a pregnant woman doing routine urinaylsis for her pregnancy, being tested for illicit drug use. She was charged w/a crime (related to the drug use) and the charge ultimately was thrown out, since it was considered unreasonable search. (that’s not in the article you linked, but I remember the case)

And, (GQ wring, keep it GQ) it is exactly cases like that that tells me not to be too terribly concerned that a corporation will risk testing for things other than what’s specified.

In that case, the agency that did the additional tests had (at least at some level) an altruistic motive (preventing drug related birth defects) but even that was declared a big no no.

So, unless you can come up with an actual event detailing a private corporation that did choose to spend the extra amounts of $$ to test prospective employee’s urine for things other than the announced drug related pre employment screen (and thus risking huge lawsuits at the very least), I’ll stand by my statement of ‘not a big worry’.

As far as DOC costs - yes, mind boggling, however, there’s a couple of other factors - A. once some one has been on supervision for a while, the frequency of the testing slacks off (usually). and B. with an order that big, the various DOC’s often are able to get volumne discounts from companies. But it’s still quite the chunck of change.

Please, if you can at all avoid it, do not work for companies that require drug testing. I know, I know, it’s tough these days, but everyone knows this is an unnecessary invasion of privacy.

You want a urine sample, Mr. Drug-Testing Employer? Open your mouth and close your eyes.

And that little aside was applicable to the General Question exactly how, occ?

Well, I er, ah, er, hmm, I uh, you see…
Got me. What a bastard I am.

Here’s some useful, although repeat, information: THC is the easiest chemical to check for in drug tests, due to its long…er…“half-life” (certainly the wrong term, but there you go).

However, THC threshhold levels in drug tests vary widely, and due to claims of false positives, tend to be jacked up. It’s possible that you could smoke the day before and get away with it; I don’t know if they’d comment on the fact that THC is present, albeit below the level of “This person is a cannabis smoker, let’s throw the book at him.”

How do I spook a drug test? :stuck_out_tongue:

Risking offending the powers that be, may I ask why we can not actually divulge possible ways to pass a drug test?
I would imagine that if the discussion was about avoiding speeding tickets we would be allowed to discuss all points freely. Or, if the topic was about radar detectors we would also be allowed to discuss this freely even though radar detectors are illegal in several states and Washington D.C.
In my short time in these boards I don’t remember seeing such limits being imposed on what could be discussed (but, I may be wrong).
If a prospective employee feels that his right to privacy is important to him/her they should be able to protect it. If there are legal ways (there are) to pass a grug test given by a private empoyer, why can this not be discussed? Doing so is really no different than fudging on your resume or rounding up to the nearest year to fulfill an employers requirements of experience.
Finally, I have been very impressed with the intelligence level of this board and the very polite way that it’s members discuss some of the more controversial topics and I don’t see that this censorship is necessary. I understand that this is a private board and the owners and their appointees set the rules so “free speech” does not apply and I am not asserting that I have any “right” to say anything in this forum. I am just curious, why does this topic get such limitions of what exactly can be discussed?

well, for one, while pre employment drug screens are pretty common, one of the more common uses for drug testing is in conjunction with court ordered supervision (parole/probation). Since it’s a court/doc requirement, avoidance of same would/does land folks in court/jail again. So, to discuss means of avoiding criminal responsability is generally a no-no here.

Discussions I’ve heard about speeding tickets and the like, have followed the lines of ‘how do I defend myself in court’, which is a right we have. “beating the system” is not. Debates about why we have certain laws are prolific here. Conversations about how to break said laws aren’t.

Questions or comments about administrative policy belong in the Pit. Please email any of us or start a thread there. For now, suffice it to say that your belief about our policy regarding evading speeding tickets and the like is factually incorrect.

Just a few quick points if I may:

Urine drug tests run anywhere from $50-$150. Price depends on volume and level of security.

Employers recieve a 5% discount on their workmans comp premium if they do pre-employment screening. They get 10% if they do pre-employment screening and random testing. Most don’t opt for the latter because it’s not cost effective in the long run and there is no proof that random testing decreases workplace drug use. Besides, the presumption of guilt can be a real moral buster at the workplace.

morale

This man was almost certainly violated and sent back to the pen. They always test for pot on drug screens for people on parole. It’s one of the most common substances of abuse.

Not directly related to the OP, but some people have questioned why corporations care if the people they’re hiring are using marijuana (or other illegal drugs). Perhaps (and this is a speculation on my part) what they’re actually testing for is not drug use but illegality itself. Like it or not, marijuana is illegal. Some people choose to use it anyway, apparently rationalizing that it’s their choice to make as to whether or not they want to follow the law. I can see that a business, which undoubtedly has a number of rules of its own, might decide that a person with this casual attitude towards rule breaking might be a poor employment risk.

i work at a medical lab, and we do a lot of drug testing. THC is on all of our panels. this is a urine test. we can test for prozac, or tobacco, or caffeine, but that test is done on blood, by gas chromatography, costs $517 and takes 7-10 days for results to get back. that panel actually tests for over 500 drugs, and no, you can’t pick and choose which ones you want. i have never seen this test come in from an employer, only for social services and correctional cases, and in a few cases where someone was suspected of having been given “rufies” at a party.

we do not test your urine drug test for pregnancy, diabetes, epilepsy or any other “genetic” anomaly, or any type of illness.

i have been trying to think of a situation where i would feel comfortable knowing that the person i had “hired” was a frequent drug user. i certainly wouldn’t want my mechanic, my doctor, my children’ teacher, my vet, my burger flipper, my pilot, or my cashier to be a frequent drug user. even jobs like cashier require some level of concentration, and i’d be really annoyed if my charmin got rang up 57 times because the cashier liked the way the “beep” sounded when it went through the bar code reader.

the way i see it, what you do in your own home is your business. toke away. but be prepared to suffer the consequences of your actions. yes, i too believe that drug testing is an invasion of your privacy. however, the next time you have to have surgery, ask yourself how confident you would feel if you knew the surgeon had rolled himself a fattie last night. i would rather give up that privacy than put my life, or any aspect of my life, in the hands of somebody who may still be under the effects of drugs. i feel the same way about prescription drugs. i certainly would not want to ride with a taxi driver who was a valium abuser.

Dug up a copy of Corrections Forum I remembered reading at work and got some facts.

Drug tests looks for the presence of drug related metabolites in the person’s system. The test is conducted in two parts. The first test, the screen, determines the total level of all metabolites related with each drug being tested for. If any of these amounts are considered high enough, a second test, the confirmation, is conducted. The confirmation tests for the level of whichever individual metabolite is present in the highest concentration.

Here’s the Federal recommended testing guidelines for workplaces. Most of these are what private companies use, except that many companies set a higher level for opiates (usually 2000 ng/ml) because non-drug substances can raise the metabolite levels.

Marijuana
screen level = 50 ng/ml
confirmation level = 15 ng/ml
7 metabolites tested

Cocaine
screen level = 300 ng/ml
confirmation level = 150 ng/ml
1 metabolite tested

Opiates
screen level = 300 ng/ml
confirmation level = 300 ng/ml
5 metabolites tested

Amphetamines
screen level = 1000 ng/ml
confirmation level = 500 ng/ml
4 metabolites tested

PCP
screen level = 25 ng/ml
confirmation level = 25 ng/ml
1 metabolites tested

You can get a false positive even while using drugs because of the dual nature of the test. Using marijuana as an example, let’s say you failed the screen test with a reading of 70 ng/ml. You could get this result by having all seven metabolites present in your system at a level of 10 ng/ml. However you’d then pass the confirmation test because none of your individual metabolite levels would exceed 15 ng/ml.