"Negative Proof" drug tests

Factual Questions
1

A couple years ago I had to take a drug test. This was along with everybody else that shares my living arrangements (sort of a drug-and-alcohol-free community)

I wasn’t worried about it at all. My problem was alcohol, not drugs, and I had been sober about 7 years at the time of the test. The last illegal drug I used was marijuana, and that had been even longer ago than my last drink. My entire experience with weed was comprised of thee experiments with it, at age 15, age 19, and once more at age 26. I became violently ill every single time, so saw no need to make a regular thing of it.

Never used any other illegal drug.

So imagine my surprise when I very nearly “failed” the urine test.

Aside from my problems with the methodology used in administering the test (administered by an untrained person), I had a serious problem with the test itself.

The test worked like this: a drop of urine was placed into the well at one end of a plastic “test strip”. The strip tested for three kinds of drugs - THC, cocaine, and opiates, I think. The drop of urine was then supposed to travel the length of the strip, and after a minute the little indicators would tell the administrator whether I’d been using drugs or not.

But wait - that’s how I think the indicators should have worked - a Yes or No answer. That’s not what this test did, though. There was only one indicator for each drug type: “No”.

That is, if the specified substance was not found, the indicator would turn from white to blue. There was no “Yes” indicator to say “the specified substance was detected”. So if the substance was detected, the indicator would not change. It just remained white.

So here is my question: if the test is not able to provide an active “Yes” answer, then how do you know that the test strip is not simply malfunctioning or defective when the “No” indicator doesn’t change color? I feel that if the answer is “Yes”, then there should be an active indication of that “Yes” answer. “Yes” should not be indicated by “nothing happens”.

Especially when a “Yes” answer means the person in question is going to find himself homeless.

If I remember correctly, the order of the indicators, from first to last, was cocaine, THC and then opiates.

For my test, a single drop of my urine was placed in the well. The cocaine indicator turned blue almost immediately. And then nothing. So it said I hadn’t used cocaine. Cool. But the THC and opiates indicators remained white. It was only after the administrator figured out that the urine simply wasn’t reaching the other two indicators, and proceeded to dump more and more drops of urine into the tester that the THC and opiates indicators finally turned blue.

The thing is, this test was supposed to work with just one drop of urine, and in three minutes, too. As far as I’m concerned, if the urine does not travel the full length of the testing device within those three minutes, that is a malfunction. And that malfunction, coupled with “nothing happens means ‘Yes’”, tells me that the likelihood of a “false positive” is very high with this particular test.

So now we’re all scheduled for another one of these tests in 90 days. One of our residents was arrested on outstanding warrants, and the police found “drug paraphenalia” on him. And so we all get to take another test. Grrrr…

I agree 100% that the best way to pass a drug test is to not use drugs. It’s discouraging then, when I don’t use drugs and still almost fail a drug test due to what I feel is a poorly-designed test.

Does anybody have some insight on this? And I’m not interested in suggestions on how to “beat” the test. I’m simply fearful about getting a false positive on a test that doesn’t actively indicate “positive”.

2

You should be fearful of those tests. They’re the cheapest ones out there. Generally, they’re usually only used for an initial test. If that turns up positive, a more accurate and expensive test is administered. The accurate test is ~$25 and needs to be sent away to a lab for results, while the strips are only about $2-3 each and produce results within minutes, so you can see why they’d use those first.

So they’re drug testing people for housing now? Please tell me yours is a very unusual situation. Otherwise, I think I’m going to vomit.

3

Kind of an unusual situation, yes. I live in a homeless shelter that offers very-long-term residency options. I’m here expressly for the purpose of minimizing my expenses while I work to get myself out of the massive debt I incurred during my drinking days. (The gap between wages and hosing prices in this town is absurd, and being a single male with no children I don’t have a lot of financial help options.)

A lot of the people here (myself included) are not “homeless” by the traditional definition. They’ve simply come here to find a safe place where they can easily avoid the temptations of drugs and alcohol. Those of us who have been here long enough have private or semi-private rooms, but the majority live in a dormitory arrangement.

So naturally, bringing drugs into this living arrangement is a recipe for trouble. Even if the drug-user does not steal, or isn’t violent, etc, there’s the simple fact that most drug users don’t like to do it alone. They tend to drag other people into what they’re doing. And so allowing it would defeat the purpose of this place.

The drug testing is not a prerequisite for moving in. This upcoming test will be only the second in the several years I’ve been here. Both times, there has been what the head guy considers “probable cause”. The first time, he had found evidence that some person or persons were smoking weed on the property; this time, the resident being caught with paraphenalia.

Still, I feel that it would be more appropriate to test specific indiviuals if there is a reason to suspect them, rather than do a mass testing of the entire resident population. And since we’re a private organization that receives no government funding, this isn’t really a legal or “rights” issue. We all sign an agreement when we move in to not use drugs or alcohol, and we’re informed up front of the consequences of violating the policy. What it is is the old case of “one guy ruining it for everybody”.

4

erm… that should be “housing prices”, not “hosing…” grrrr…