Hair drug tests have become a more common form of drug testing. But just like any information found on the internet, there is a lot of misinformation around hair follicle drug testing. In this article, we are going to separate fiction from the fact.
The advantage of hair drug screening
Before we talk about the common misconceptions about hair drug screening, let us talk about some of the benefits of the advantages of using this kind of screening test.
To know more about drug screening test, you can read check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_test.
The test is more accurate compared to other methods.
Because the test needs to be conducted by testing professionals, and because of its nature, they are very difficult to cheat and impossible to fake. On the other hand, the test subject can skew the result of urinalysis by drinking a lot of water to dilute the urine sample. People can also use synthetic or fake urine that can be bought in joke shops or ask other people for test samples.
Hair drug screening has a much longer detecting window compared to blood or urine drug screening
While blood or urine testing usually looks back a week or two, hair screening has a detection window of three to four months or 90 to 120 days. And depending on the length of the test sample collected, it can even go back as far as six months to one year.
Because of these reasons, a lot of companies are starting to use this method of drug testing to maintain a drug-free environment in their organization. Now that we have covered some of the benefits, let us go into more detail and address some common misconceptions about this method of drug screening.
A common myth about hair follicle screening debunked
Myth #1: You can avoid being tested if you shaved your head.
Fact: The hair around your body, not just from your head can be used as a sample. Sometimes, people think that they are off the hook if they do not have hair on their heads. But follicle screening can be done using samples collected from other parts of the body like the neck, chest, arms, armpits, legs or in rare cases, the private parts.
You need to shave every hair in your body in order to make the test impossible to conduct. People also think that having short hair will make a bad sample, but in reality, two inches of sample are all it needs to get an accurate result (longer sample has a longer detection window).
It is also crucial to know that because a lot of employers want to know about recent drug use history of their employees, specialists need to obtain a sample that is a lot closer to the scalp as possible. It will allow them to analyze the newest sample.
Myth #2: There are select products available in the market that will help cleanse the hair of drug substances.
Fact: There’s no proven way (100%) to cheat a follicle screening using regular hair products. Unique products sold on the market like special shampoos claim to help people pass the test by cleansing the follicles of any trapped components like THC.
It is partly false. It helps to know how the screening works. When you use drugs, it will hit your system. Once it happens, it will travel to every part of the body, and it includes your hair follicles. It will be trapped there, and once it happens, it will stay put for a long time.
But according to people who use weed detox shampoo like Old Style Aloe Rid, if used regularly, the shampoo can help detoxify the follicles of any toxins and components like THC and help the user pass the hair follicle drug screening with flying colors. While experts believe that no shampoo or hair products and remove toxins in your follicles, people who used it says otherwise.
Myth #3: You can use the samples collected from the brush
Fact: You can use samples obtained from brushes or combs, but the results will not be conclusive. These techniques are usually used by parents who want to prove their sons and daughters are using an illegal substance. While they can do it, it is not the most accurate method; the result is also can’t be used in any legal matters.
The problem is that it is very impossible to attribute the collected sample to a specific person. Because of this reason, most laboratories refer to the subject as “anonymous donor.” Also, please note that in case of legal matters, if the court orders for a drug screening, the result that is collected from an anonymous donor is not admissible in any court of law. Testing samples collected from a comb, brush or blower is possible, but it does not really give you any accurate answers, just a piece of mind.
For a more detailed explanationon THC, you can read more in this site.
Myth #4: Second-hand smoke from other smokers can cause people to fail their drug screening.
Fact: There is a small chance that you will test positive from secondhand smoke, unless you are inside a room full of pot smokers who are smoking cannabis for at least a day. If you did not ingest cannabis, rest assured that there is a big chance that you will pass the screening with flying colors.
Secondhand smoke involves passive exposure. It means, if you use cannabis as an example, you are not inhaling oringesting any amount of THC or tetrahydrocannabinol – the active cannabis component that will get the users high – from the actual source.
The amount of tetrahydrocannabinol in secondhand smoke is minimal (more or less 100 times less potent compared to the amount of tetrahydrocannabinol you will get from smoking a joint). Even in studies where test subjects were put inside a confined space with cannabis smoke, the participants did not test positive.
You need to be in a tight space with an excessive amount of cannabis smoke for it to show up in any drug screening. It means that even if you subject yourself in a follicle drug test after hanging out with cannabis smokers the whole day, there is a small chance that tetrahydrocannabinol will show up on the result.
