Drug-Test Cheats Try New Tricks put on Labs

Experts Say Internet and Household Products Bring New Challenges to Drug Testing
By Todd Zwillich
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

July 28, 2008 — Vinegar. Lemon juice. Drain-cleaning products. At least unit of these items is probably in your kitchen. And any of them can be used to beat a drug test.
For about 20 years, family have been using a long list of surpassingly ordinary household items to confuse prospective employers and remedy labs hoping to lay hold them in the conduct one’s self of using or abusing illegal drugs.
Add to the list laundry detergent, baking soda, and ordinary poignancy.
"Does it work? Yes, it does," says Amitava Dasgupta, PhD, a professor of pathology and drug testing expert from the University of Texas-Houston Medical Center. "It’s a cat and peer game."
Employer physic testing became popular in the late 1980s after President Ronald Reagan instituted put drugs into testing while a requirement for federal jobs. Lots of not to be disclosed companies followed request, and today thousands run drug tests on people applying for jobs.
Many schools also conduct drug tests on students calamitous to join sports teams, or, more controversially, sometimes conduct tests put on a random groundwork.
Many household items change urine’s pH, or acidity, when they’re added to it; principally of the time that renders a sample useless for testing. But these are not the cheating methods that solicitude testers like Dasgupta.
That’s because labs have power to easily confess when urine has been adulterated with household items. Usually they just disqualify the applicant without equable bothering to test notwithstanding specific drugs.
Online Test-Cheating Industry

That’s what happens with most of the so-called "detoxifying" drinks that be possible to be found online. Most of the drinks are simply loaded with caffeine and come with directions to drink lots and lots of water. That dilutes the urine, which can sully a drug test.
But testers are prepared for dilution, Dasgupta says. Any pattern in the world of the departed a certain concentration is automatically rejected, regardless of whether it has evidence of illegal drugs in it.
"There is no magic formulation which can take drugs out of your body," Dasgupta says.
Chris Faught, who heads chemical testing at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, says his lab routinely sees dilution as a strategy to fool drug tests in the emergency room. "We earn results that are simply suppressed so there’s obviously an interfering substance. The old first-rate work way is to drink lots and lots of water," he tells WebMD.
But the gigantic test-cheating industry, found mostly online, has given toxicologists like Dasgupta new problems to contend with. One popular formulation is called pyridinium chlorochromate (PCC). It destroys put drugs into molecules in urine, potentially fooling drug tests.
But there’s a catch: the natural addition of some hydrogen peroxide will cast a PCC-containing urine sample obscure brown.
Testing for Marijuana Use

"The bottom line is toxicologists are smarter than drug abusers," Dasgupta told reporters at a meeting of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry in Washington. "If try to cheat on a drug test, we will catch you."
That’s usually true. But even Dasgupta concedes there are some holes in his drug-testing net. He says parents should be on the lookout for over-the-counter eyedrops. A full vial of the easy-to-buy product be able to successfully mask THC — marijuana’s active ingredient — if it’s added to a urine sample.
This cheating method doesn’t work for heavy marijuana users. But for "borderline" tests, some eyedrops can inwrap THC molecules, effectively hiding them from chemical detection, adds Dasgupta.
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SOURCES:
Amitava Dasgupta, PhD, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, University of Texas-Houston Medical School.
Chris Faught, chief, chemical testing, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

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