So if you think all employment candidates who come back with clean results on their drug tests, think again. At Corra Group where we are partnered with Quest Diagnostics, we found this bit of information useful to any employers who are conducting drug screening as part of their employment screening policy. The drug test can be a helpful background check and in some cases it is mandated as employers are confronted with compliance issues when dealing with certain business or government contracts.
According to this article on Quest Diagnostics…”Some donors drink large volumes of liquid prior to their drug test collection in an effort to dilute their specimens, while others add water, products or chemicals to their urine specimen in an effort to mask the drugs present in their body, destroy the drugs in the specimen, or interfere with the laboratory analysis. Some donors even attempt to substitute their specimen with another person’s urine, synthetic urine or beverages.
The use of oxidizing adulterants is one of the most common ways donors try to cheat a urine drug test. According to theSubstance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), an oxidizing adulterant is a substance that acts alone or in combination with other substances to oxidize drugs or drug metabolites to prevent the detection of the drugs or drug metabolites, or affects the reagents in either the initial or confirmatory drug test. Examples of oxidizing agents include, but are not limited to, nitrites, pyridinium chlorochromate, chromium (VI), bleach, iodine, halogens, peroxidase and peroxide.”
