The different types of work-place drug testing and their benefits

Although drug testing sounds like it could be a complicated and difficult affair, the truth is rather different from the popular perception.

It may surprise you that drug testing rarely involves anything as extreme as taking a sample of blood. In fact, unless you’re an uncooperative criminal, in the military or subject to the exhaustive screening of a professional athlete, you’ll find that drug tests are a remarkably mundane experience to go through.

This will probably be welcome news to employers in sensitive fields of work. Despite the fact that many government agencies and industrial occupations have a legal obligation to screen employees for drug and alcohol abuse, convincing your workforce to face the needle would hardly win any favour with staff. Even convicted criminals aren’t subjected to that.

Despite the popular misconception, drugs testing generally makes use of easily gathered biological samples that carry fewer medical risks all round. Here are the three main types of drugs testing used by employers and their respective benefits:

Oral Fluids: drugs tests that make use of samples of saliva are best used for spot-testing, such as healthcare monitoring or roadside testing. A simple swab of the mouth allows lab technicians to develop a picture of what  substances an individual has been taking in the past 48 hours or so. Not only is this type of sample extremely easy to collect, tests can even take place on site. Because of its immediacy, it’s an effective way of detecting on-the-job substance abuse or in post-accident screening. Another benefit is that oral tests can provide an insight into the degree of intoxication, approximately based on the amount of substance detected.

Urine Tests: This is the most widely tested type of sample and the one with the longest track record of proven results. Urine testing provides a profile of drug use for the past 1-4 days for almost all drug groups. It’s also the most cost-effective way of testing employees. Many different samples can be gathered at the same time and delivered to the laboratory simultaneously. An added benefit of this type of testing is the usual size of the sample – without going into too much detail, a large sample volume makes testing much quicker and easier.

Hair: This type of testing is unique in that it provides a long window of detection. This is because ingested drugs get into the blood stream and circulate the body fast; as every hair follicle has it owns blood supply, any drug use can still be found in hair long after the body has processed (and excreted) drugs. Not only are hair samples easy to collect and easy to dispatch, they’re extremely useful for building a long-term profile of an individual’s drug use. This is particularly useful when it comes to pre-employment screening, or for child protection services.