Out of all the sample tests, hair follicle drug testing is regarded as the most reliable to unveil the drug’s overdose or addiction. While a urine test is quick to reveal the results, it is easier to manipulate the results and does not match with the accuracy of hair follicle drug tests. This piece of writing by The Carlson Company is to open your eyes to the less common but highly accurate hair follicle drug testing. Here we will answer some frequently asked questions like what is a hair follicle drug test? How is it done? How accurate it is and more.
What Is Hair Follicle Drug Testing?
Hair Follicle Drug Testing is the best way to detect illicit drug use/overuse by a person in the last 90 days (3 months). The drugs could be consumed intentionally, unintentionally, or forcefully. The hair samples of the person in question are taken and tested in a well-equipped laboratory under the supervision of certified personnel only.
Hair from any part of the body could do the trick but the samples from the head are highly preferred for accuracy. The tests could be ordered by a victim’s family member, an employer, attorney, or criminal investigators.
List Of Drugs That Can Be Detected In Hair Drug Testing
Hair drug testing answers all the questions with just a single test. Here is the list of drugs that the test confirms:
- Cocaine
- Opioids
- Marijuana
- Phencyclidine (PCP)
- Cannabis
- Methamphetamine, MDMA (ecstasy), and MDEA (eve)
- Opiates (heroin, codeine, and morphine)
How Are Hair Follicle Drug Tests Done?
Step-1 – Sample Collection
The sample is taken from the person’s body (preferably head) and is tested by a professional tester. For 100% accuracy, the sample is collected by a certified professional. Sample collection is the rudimentary stage of any testing, manipulation at this stage is often the cause of false results.
Wondering how much hair is needed for a drug test? The sample collection ranges from 90 to 120 strands.
Step-2 – Lab Testing Phase
Testing is done in 2 phases.
The first stage is the rapid screening Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) test. The second phase commences if the result is positive. The second stage is the confirmatory chromatographic testing used to determine that there is no inaccuracy in the positives and to conclude that the drugs are certainly consumed by the person.
To be noted: Several edibles and medicines contain compounds that may lead to false positives. The second test is mandatory to confirm that there are no false positives for accurate results.
What Are The Possible Conclusions For Hair Follicle Tests?
There are only three possibilities.
Negative – If the test is negative, the process will conclude within 24 hours of the sample collection, just after the ELISA (screening) test. Negative means the person hasn’t taken any unethical drug over the past 90 days.
Positive – If the test is positive, it will come to the limelight after 72 hours as all the tests that are positive undergo a second phase which is gas chromatography or mass spectrometry. The second test not only determines the presence of drugs but also identifies the type of drug as well.
Inconclusive – Under rare circumstances, the test yields no conclusive results. This mostly happens when the sample collection is inappropriate, or the sample is tempered with prior testing.
How Accurate Is A Hair Follicle Drug Test?
A drug enters the bloodstream to be metabolized and broken down into metabolites by the body. These metabolites in the blood travel through the body and are ultimately deposited into the hair follicle.
On average, the hair grows about half an inch from the scalp per month. The part is useful in testing for drugs in the body. Relying on the hair growth calculation, done based on the length of the hair sample, we can go back to the time frame selected. Thus detect the drugs or their metabolites exposure during that specific timeframe.
Drug exposure (the evidence) remains in the hair until you shave them. The Carlson Company might test the entire strand or the section that represents the specific timeframe (that you select). The drug test could be done a time nearby a specific date of the incident as well.
So, why is hair testing preferred? As far as the manipulation of the hair follicle is concerned, it is technically impossible to tamper with the samples directly collected by the tester. The possibility of manipulation can occur if the professional is not trained to take the samples.
Body Hair V/S Head Hair Drug Test
For accurate results, body hair is not as much preferred as the head hair sample. Unlike head hair, body hair has traces of drug abuse sometime between 30 days to one year in the past. A hair sample is comparatively more accurate to even determine approximately when the drug was used and whether or not the consumption is discontinued.
Where Can I Get A Hair Follicle Drug Test?
A hair follicle drug test could only be done by a certified laboratory well-equipped and under the supervision of experts. You can book a slot(s) for hair follicle drug testing at The Carlson Company, a certified laboratory for poison tests, date rape drugs tests, and DNA and forensic tests.
