HAIRS
- Lucy Kiem Kee
|
Your parents, teachers and police officers warned you to "Just say no" to drugs and alcohol. They told you that it would damage your body, it would kill your brain cells--and it might even kill you. The one thing that they never told you was that one day it might come back to haunt you. Urinalysis drug tests can be masked using common household products such as water, vinegar and Visine, all of which are rumored to defeat the immunoglobulin/antigen binding and cause a false negative on the urinalysis test. Then there are drug screens, chemicals taken orally that are supposed to mask traces of drugs in urine, such as aspirin, Goldenseal, niacin and Puri-Blend, a three-hour tea. And most drugs are out of the body and undetectable within 48 hours by a urinalysis test--with the exception of marijuana, which can be detected by urinalysis for up to 30 days. The fact of the matter is that there are ways to beat a urinalysis, whether you are a casual or a chronic user. Yet to this date, no proven ways exist to pass the hair follicle drug test. Hair analysis not only detects if drugs of abuse have been used, it also provides information on the quantity and historic pattern of individual drug use. This information is not available from any other drug screening procedure. "Because the hair is nourished by the bloodstream, any drug residue is immediately trapped in the hair follicle and remains there as it grows. Hence we are able, through the use of an inch and a half of hair, to look at a person's 'history' for a three month period as compared to only two or three days for urinalysis," said Ray Kubacki, president and CEO of Psychemedics Corporation, the largest company currently marketing hair follicle drug testing. He explained that hair grows at a rate of approximately a half-inch per month.
More and more organizations are choosing to use hair analysis over urinalysis because far fewer hair samples are needed to provide a profile of drug abuse. Because it's virtually evasion-proof, no sample substitutions are available as there are with urinalysis. Hair analysis is more sensitive for rapidly excreted drugs such as opiates and cocaine. It can also indicate the level and frequency of drug use over known periods. The samples are easier to take, with no special equipment, no refrigeration and very easy transportation to the laboratory.
About 50 hairs, the width of a pencil point, are cut from the inch-and -a-half closest to the scalp, representing the most recent three months of growth, and then are shipped to a laboratory. "Once we get the hair in the lab, it gets logged in," Kubacki explained. "We then wash the hair to get rid of any external contaminants. Then the hair is liquefied, a process we hold a patent on. Then we put the hair through a chemical screen to get rid of all the absolute negatives. For all the positives, we do a second confirmation test using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, the GC/MS. Basically once you liquefy the hair, it's the same as urinalysis." The hair is tested for five drugs: "cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamines, opiates and PCP," Kubacki said, "and we hold a patented test for marijuana." "Over 1,000 corporations nationwide use our services, including the largest corporation and the largest police force," Kubacki said. Among these corporations are Harrah's Casino, Blockbuster Video, The Discovery Zone and Ross Dress for Less. "Hair analysis is an advantage over urinalysis for several reasons," explained Robert Torres, Human Resources Representative at Harrah's Casino. "First, it offers a wider window of detection. Hair analysis provides us with a 90-day history of drug use, whereas urinalysis can only provide us with two to four days. And second, hair analysis can't be evaded. There was a study done that proved that you can pass a urinalysis test and that you can also tamper with it. With hair, the drug residue is permanently embedded in your hair." "Bleaching or dyeing your hair will not help you pass the test," Kubacki said, "it's in your hair permanently." Shaving your head won't work either because "if your hair is extremely short, we can take samples from hair on other parts of the body." There have been concerns with hair analysis since drugs are detected easier in those with dark, thick hair as opposed to those with light, thin hair, thus representing discrimination against people of color. However, Kubacki commented that "there is no difference in the hair analysis based upon a person's race." Opponents to the test have also argued that hair analysis is less accurate for shorter hair, and is even less accurate for recently ingested drugs because the traces take a few days to find their way into the hair. For this reason, many have recommended urinalysis to detect more recent drug use; however, Kubacki does not agree. "I absolutely recommend hair analysis over urinalysis" he said. "We don't get any poppy seed positives. It's blind safe and 100 percent accurate. The drugs remain in your hair forever." |
|
|
