HAIR DRUG TESTING???

Ethel

Has anyone used hair drug testing? If so, what are the advantages or urine testing?

awilliams

Yes, when I was in private practice we used hair folicle testing. The hair folicle can tell you lots more than urine - and goes back up to six months in time. The problem we ran into was lots of opposition from the opposising side in an arbitrtion that the testing was not reliable. I don't know how mainstream it has become in recent years.

Anne Williams
Attorney Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers, LLC

San Francisco

I thought I recalled that it is also much more expensive than urine testing. And also takes longer for results. Anyone know if that is true.

Elizabeth

Don D

It is also a scientific fact that 'hair testing' will not and does not show 'current' use. It only shows prior use. It will not detect six joints smoked this morning. Nor will it detect heroin shot up yesterday. The drug consortium I've used in the past asked me why in the world anyone would want to test for prior use when what we should be concerned with is current use. Good question.

Ethel

Wow - I didn't know that it did not test for current use!! How about cost -- is it a lot more expensive?

Yahoo

I used to use the hair test when I worked in the casinos. I personally liked it. Never had any issues with reliability & didn't take too much longer for results. (If it was good enough for the MO Gaming Commission, it should be good enough for anybody! You don't get much by them.)

The biggest plus is that it is virtually tamper-proof. You can't sober up for a few weeks or warm up some of your buddy's sample at the QT around the corner. A plug of hair approximately the size of a pencil eraser is cut by a technician at the testing site. If there is not enough hair on the head, a sample can be taken from elsewhere on the body.... x:-8 Drug use can be detected back several months. I did have a couple of applicants (female) turn down a job offer because they refused to allow their hair to be cut......

rad

How much hair do they need? I thought it was only a strand or two.

Yahoo

The company I used took a plug approximately the size of a pencil eraser - they took small pieces from several discreet spots, so no one ruined their 'do.

Don D

Just imagine, though, how long it takes the chemical composition of THC, for example, to travel through the digestive system into the blood stream and then through the follicle and into a strand of hair. That was the point that was made to me. Professional athletic organizations from the NFL to the Olympics and 95% of the major trucking firms running thousands of drivers rely on urinalysis, not hair. I don't know the cost, just have been told it is higher.

Pork

ETHEL: We use blood and hair sample testing as the system for the ee to use to defend their claim of "not me", "don't use and never been around the stuff". I suspend the ee until he/she returns with the invoice for having paid for and taken the sample. The suspension is then continued until the results are back, given a negative rather than a positive for a urine test, we then will remove the suspension and pay the ee for all hours missed as regular time worked.

GUESS WHAT, I have no idea of the expense, because we have never had an ee with a positive urine test who wanted to invest the money to prove the urine test as not correct.

This system has worked for several different policy programs in 5 different companies.

Good luck, don't fork out the money as the company, let the one telling the truth invest the funds on his/her behalf!

PORK