We have a pretty strict drugs policy at work where even common over-the-counter remedies are restricted and dismissal may well be the reponse to positive testing. I was chatting about it to a colleague and he mentioned that having the presence of a ‘mask’ in your body could also result in instant dismissal.
I understand that these masks are used by people wishing to disguise whatever medication/drug they took but neither of us could work out how they work. How can one substance (I am presuming it’s also a drug) conceal the presence of another? Wouldn’t they both show?
Please note, I’m not asking for advice on how to ‘beat the system’ or how to take medications I’m not supposed to. There are very good reasons for my employers having this policy and I wouldn’t want the thread to go in that direction. I’m just curious in general terms about how masks work.
One of the things they look for that might trip you up is concentration. Many of the masking agents are diuretics, which combined with forced hydration can dilute drugs of interest below detection limits. You might be hydrating more than normal for perfectly innocent reasons, such as kidney stones, but if your urine appears too dilute you can fail a drug test in the absence of any detectable drugs.
the drug screening tools I’m familiar with cant’ tell the difference between tylenol with codeine and heroin, both would give you a positve for opiates response. I suppose some people would try the old " it;s my prescription darvocet/t#3/codeine coughsyrup/vicodin," ploy
My company’s drug testing policy states that you are required to divulge all prescription and non prescription drugs that you are taking prior to giving the urine sample. If anything you are taking legally could cause a positive reaction you get a “get out of rehab free” card.
I’m not sure how privacy laws allow the company to force you to reveal the contents of your medicine cabinet. There are good and prudent reasons for concealing some legally prescribed medication. Suppose I was taking anti-depressants, or cancer medication, or antiarrythmic drugs? While legally it should not be career limiting, in actual practice that’s the kiss of death for promotion prospects.
It hasn’t come up in my case, the random sampling hasn’t pulled my number yet. In fact, the policy has been in place for 3 years, I knew a couple of people randomly tested in the first month, then nobody since then. I suspect having the policy is like a burglar alarm sticker without having to have a burglar alarm.
I take it this means that the majority of corporate drug testing companies would only use basic tests? And that more sophisticated tests would determine whether it was codeine or heroin?
Bill Door I have a safety-critical job so I cannot take e.g. sedatives if I am to do it. If I am prescribed medication (or self medicate) then I have to declare this before starting work and if the company doctors say I cannot do my regular job then I get other, non-safety-critical work until I’m off the medication. There’s no question of my employers preventing me taking medication I require - though they can reasonably request that I restrict myself to company-approved medication unless there is nothing suitable for whatever problem I might have. For example, they can request that I only use non-drowsy antihistamines for my hayfever. If those particular types didn’t work then it would be perfectly acceptable for me to use other kinds but I wouldn’t be allowed to do my regular job whilst using them.
I’m not sure how long this thread is going to stay open since the thread I started on common things that will get you a positive drug test got closed pretty quick (I’m currently seeking feedback in the pit as to whether I should appeal.) I hope your thread doesn’t get closed because I’m interested in this type of topic.
There are many ways that masking agents can work. I can’t explain them all, but I can explain a few.
For masking testosterone, you could inject yourself with an appropriate amount of epitestosterone because the lab testers typically looking at the ratio of epitestosterone to testosterone as the first step to seeing whether you are positive for that drug.
To mask EPO, some athletes have placed an enzyme from laundry detergent on his/her fingers and then peed on the fingers into the cup used to collect the urine sample. The active enzyme used is protease which breaks down virtually all the EPO, natural and synthetic, into proteins and thus renders a negative test.
For a list of other masking agents, visit the World Anti-Doping Agency website at http://www.wada-ama.org/en/prohibitedlist.ch2 and download the prohibited list and search for “mask” in the download document. It is very important to note that the presence of masking agents in your body will also constitute the basis for a positive drug test as defined by WADA.
Um…gee thanks Chasing Dreams. I’m going to assume you merely misread my OP and didn’t see the part where I said I wasn’t interested in the specifics. I wanted to know generally what a mask was and how it worked - I do NOT intend to use one. (Oh and WADA is a bit irrelevant).
“Masking” a drug test is a broad topic. Here are a few techniques that people keep trying…
GoldenSeal, the herb that has never helped anyone pass a drug test
Drinking water until your urine is dilute and tinting it by consuming B vitamins… this depresses creating levels, which either results in a re-test or the assumption of fraud
Some people try slipping a couple crystals of an oxidant like bleach into the sample in the hope it would degrade the metabolites… again, easily detected.
… and even though none of these techniques work, and #2 could be entirely unintentional, lab results reflecting such masking is seen by some companies as prima facie evidence of being a hippie pothead.
Some companies have changed their stance from “re-test applicant” to “reject applicant” upon detecting these results. Why? Because they there’s very little legally that prevents them from interpreting results however they want, and a little paranoia can save themselves the cost of a second screen as well as the risk of hiring that troublemaker who claims Jesus had long hair and comes dragging into work 15 minutes late the morning after the Phish concert.
nope, i’m an er nurse, our test doesn’t make a distinction between different types of opiates, if there’s a way to tell I’m not familiar with it. remember that urine test are often working with the broken down by-products; not always, but I think so with opiates. when some local forklift driver gets in an accident at walbestcostosh they often come to us for a test by company policy.
That’s a great idea in theory, but in practice, every pee test I’ve given (at least a dozen) had an employee whose sole job was to ensure that I urinated directly into the cup. We were also instructed to wash our hands before the test with water only. Using soap or getting urine on your hands would result in a “no-test”. I never screwed it up, so I don’t know what comes next after a “no-test”.
The pee-over-the-fingers method is also mentioned briefly in Infinite Jest, along with buying clean urine to use in a sample. Both methods probably worked at one point long ago, but from the tests I’ve taken, the process you go through doesn’t permit such tampering.
Standard caveat: don’t use illegal drugs, and don’t try to beat drug tests if you’ve been using illegal drugs.
That really depends on the job, I think. The last time I participated in a drug screen (less than a month ago), I was sent into a bathroom with free reign. I could have had someone else’s warm piss in a baggie for all they knew. It didn’t matter since I was clean, but still… procedures do vary.
OK Second question. Say somebody died of a heroin overdose. How would the coroner be able to state that it was an overdose of that particular drug as opposed to a similar opiate?
You have to distinguish between a screening test for opiates and a more specific test that can pick up individual ones.
Frankly, the one I’m more familiar with is the specific one. I assume that the technology involves high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Regardless, there’s no doubt whatsoever that tests exist to detect morphine, say, but not oxycodone (Percocet).
If I’m not mistaken, before a drug can even be licensed for general sale, the manufacturer must demonstrate that there’s a test (assay) to detect that drug in somebody’s blood.
Just to give a taste of what’s out there, here are some abstracts documenting the detection of various illicit drugs. The third link may be the most relevant to this discussion. It certainly is the most interesting IMNSHO:
General review #1 (refers specifically to morphine and heroin, among others)
General review #2 (with methadone, dihydrocodeine, heroin, and buprenorphine, all referred to explicitly)
Here’s an interesting one. It shows that codeine, morphine, hydrocodone, hydromorphone, 6-acetylmorphine, and oxycodone can each be separately detected in hair and oral fluid. Note that - hair! Note also that if these six opiates can be separately detected in hair, then I can guarantee you that they can be detected separately (and not just as a class called “opiates”) in bood and urine too.
Well, excuseChasing Dreams for providing an informative and specific response to your question. You stated in the OP that you knew what a mask was and wanted to know generally how they worked. Chasing Dreams provided you with an idea of how they generally work.
If there is one resource that will *not * be providing specific technical information about how to beat drug tests, it’s WADA. Also, I think that it’s a great set of examples to use because no one (besides skinny guys in spandex) cares about how to mask EPO, but information about masking heroin, etc. is, I think, much harder to keep “clean enough” for The Dope.
How do you expect people to explain something scientific to you if you refuse to know any of the details?
You can ask any biochemist and they’ll tell you that proteases are a major pain in the ass, even in this modern day of protease killers, etc.
The amounts of EPO you’re analyzing in urine is very small, and even a very small amount of protease I’m confident could pose a major problem for the subsequent drug testing, especially if that urine isn’t flash frozen or has a bunch of EDTA or something similar thrown in immediately to stop proteases. How strictly is vigorous hand scrubbing really enforced before the urine sample, or why couldn’t the testee even put a bit of the protease on the tip of his penis?
I recall that an endurance athlete was recently busted with a protease product. He had never been busted for EPO in his career, so it might have worked for him.
Here in Nevada, that’s illegal. You can’t send someone into the restroom with someone taking a pee test, for a myriad of reasons; at the place I last pee tested at, it was a big deal because there were no female nurses and I’m female. I did have to disrobe and put on a medical gown, exit the changing room, put all of my possessions in a locker, wash my hands, and then go into the restroom to pee - however, if I had been particularly determined I probably could have snuck something in in my anus or somewhere - they can’t legally search my asshole here.
You could also try to prevent the improper substance for reaching your urine in the first place.
There’s a gout medication that has saved many lives because it inhibits the excretion of beneficial drugs like penicillin. Turns out it inhibits the excretion of other stuff, too.