Whether your workplace has a common drug ban as part of its rules, or you are working in a field, such as athletics, where drug use is strictly forbidden and punishable, you will need to have drug tests at some points for your employees.
Just as there are countless types of drugs, there also are a great many ways to test for those drugs. Figuring out the best workplace drug tests to opt for is essential, as leading testing labs like Matrix Diagnostics offer a wide range of tests. Choosing the correct workplace drug testing kits to purchase is a vital step towards a drug-free workplace. This article will outline some of the most common drug tests that are used in the workplace.
The Urine Test
The urine test is an extremely effective way to test for drug and alcohol content in the body. It is non-invasive, legally acceptable and used by countless businesses and governments worldwide.
If you have a large number of employees and want to get them tested quickly using a fairly common method, then the urine test is a good idea. The biggest problem with urine testing is that unless the test is monitored by a professional who knows what to look for, it is very easy to manipulate a urine drug test to provide false results. Additionally, while drugs can be detected in urine for several days after being in the body, people can simply abstain from drugs if they know about the test early enough.
The Hair Test
If you are looking for evidence of repeat drug use, then the hair drug test is an excellent test to choose, as it has a detection window of around 90 days. This makes it much harder to fake a result or to simply abstain from the drug in question. Hair testing is considered to be cheat-proof and can detect a wide variety of drugs in a person’s system. It can provide a lot of additional information as well.
Hair drug tests can provide comparative information to give a timeline of when drugs were used, how long they were used for and if the use was repeated. A hair test is also taken under direct supervision, with a sample taken directly from the head, so it is a pretty easy test to run.
The Mouth Swab Test
The oral swab test is a test that is designed to take a saliva sample from within a person’s mouth, and they are extremely popular for many businesses and workplaces because they are cheap, quick and easy to do. All a business needs are FDA-approved swabs, and then the swabs are sent to a lab. Additionally, this makes it even harder to cheat or fake a result.
While drugs can take a bit of time to metabolize into forms that show up on a urine test, a saliva test will show any drug use that has taken place within up to 48 hours.
Any of these three tests will prove to be very helpful for your business; it only comes down to which one will be the easiest for your business to administer quickly.
