Parent Solutions Manual Drug testing: An easy reference and guidebook

A PERSONAL STORYA friend of mine has been clean and sober for almost 5 years. Old photos of him display a clear timeline of self-destruction. He transforms from a delinquent and smiling teenager to later stages of young adulthood where grinning has been replaced by stern or vacant eyes that communicate self-hatred. There is also one picture of him hooked up to medical equipment, lying in a hospital bed in a coma.

When I was writing this edition of the Parent Solutions Manual on drug testing, I asked my now sober and successful friend what his experience, if any, had been with drug testing. He related to me verbally the following story: I was living at home with my parents after leaving college due to my addiction. Looking back on this period of time, I believe it must have been one of the most challenging periods of time for my family. I was so manipu-lative, defensive, secretive, and exploitative. If I wasnt stealing directly from my parents, I was sneaking around, creating elaborate stories and excuses for my behavior. I honestly remember thinking that I had found something really great when I had basically free access to as much OxyContin as I could ever want, and that no one was going to spoil this for me. Meanwhile, my vigilant mothers radar was constantly going off all over the place and she became like the detective and I became the pursued criminal.

There was an enormous white elephant in the room. I knew that everyone knew that I had a problem. But we engaged in this constant game of they trying to find evidence, me using deflection and dishonesty at every turn, and nobody really able to call it like it was, :that there was a sick and deceptive addicted young man living in the house regardless of what he was saying or what technical evidence could be found. Finally I was caught..my bad karma caught up with me. I had to face up to my father. Some kind of solution had to be struck. I negotiated to be regularly drug tested. This is exactly the type of negotiated deal that I wanted. I knew that beating drug tests would be a cinch, and it was. There were all types of products that I could purchase that allowed me to pass each weekly test. The last time I ever took a test I had let my guard down and I hadnt made it to the store to get the adulterant in time. So, instead I consumed a great amount of water. The test results came back to my father that the sample given them was not at all urine. It was all water.

My father had found out that I had been tampering with the testing and he had begun to become frustrated with this approach of trying to monitor my behavior. I really sensed that he saw some of the insanity of this continuous game of cat and mouse. This was an almost judicial game. Success in legal proceedings has so much to do with

the ability of hired legal counsel and the art of lawyering the case. Similarly, in this situation taking place in our home, the palpable truth of the situation was so clear yet dismissed in the face of this almost lawyering. That is.. until then. After that time, my father began to take a more detached position, I believe. When I asked him to take another test the following week he dismissed the idea abruptly as though it reminded him of some folly of youth to which he had been subscribing to at the time. He began to talk of not being able to do this for me and perhaps having to let go and maybe even ask me to leave the house and find my way on my own. This was the beginning of real changes in all of our lives.

Please interpret and apply this story to your own life. We will not, however, draw conclu-sions for you. You must find the answers on your own. If you are considering a way to drug test your loved one, our hope is that this story may in some way lead you to go a little deeper with your thought processes. The point of the story is not to dissuade you from the action of drug testing but rather to have you consider things again, that maybe you will find the best way forward for you and your family.

PARENT SOLUTIONS MANUAL

You are concerned that your son or daughter may be using drugs based upon their unusual behavior and want to know how long to drug test them. You have administered a drug test and are concerned that your son/daughter/loved one has cheated on it in some way. Your place of work is requiring a drug test from your loved one. Your loved one is involved in outpatient treatment that requires regular drug screening. You know someone who may want to be employed at a company that requires a pre-employment drug screening. You are concerned about yourself and that your use of drugs may be getting out of control. Your son or daughter is involved in a legal situation that has or will involve a drug test. You are conducting research on the topics of illegal drug usage, toxicology, or drug testing in general.

There are probably many more reasons than those listed above for why you have decided to purchase this book. Ultimately, the following pages provide the quickest and easiest source of basic information on drug testing for drugs of abuse. Inside you will find information on all types of drug tests, metabolism of the different drugs in the bodys system, and also some of the ways people can and do sometimes cheat drug tests.

Many will find this book very helpful and convenient as a quick reference guide for questions related to drug testing for drugs of abuse. We will also be giving simple suggestions to families who may be consider-ing drug testing a loved one who they are concerned about. How can you begin to find out if your loved one has a problem? What should you do if you find out your loved one is indeed using drugs? Its not enough to just know. What are some practical steps that can be taken to best help position your loved one to achieve success if and when you do find out that he or she has a problem? How do I act in accordance with the results can have a significant effect on your loved ones chances for a full and healthy life. What support programs are available for a person who has just found out that their loved one is on drugs? These questions will be addressed simply in the commentary sections of this book that complement the easy to use factual information presented on drug testing. One last thing: This book is meant to provide suggestions only and should not substitute for the advice of a qualified professional.

Parent Solutions Manual: Drug Testing is meant to be a quick and easy reference guide for parents who may be concerned about their loved one(s) and looking for information on specific drug tests, how/why/when to do drug testing, if drug testing is even appropriate, accuracy and tampering issues with testing, and to quickly find out the window of time different tests may detect different drugs. Parents may at times find themselves in the following situations below that may have led to the purchase of this eBook:

The one problem with this plan of action is that many addicts and alcoholics are resistant to treatment. First, they are manipulative of others. Their intellect becomes employed for use by their addiction and so it becomes a tool of defense to create a smoke screen that prevents others from seeing the reality of the situation. In this way addiction seeks to preserve itself. Addicts also manipulate and lie to themselves in order to avoid the pain of the truth and this is another way that addiction preserves itself. Only in a moment of clarity, described above, can someone see themselves for who they REALLY are and reach a point of vulnerability that will lead to a request for help.

The second issue with asking someone to take a drug test or be evaluated is that people with addiction problems can be prone to fight or flight reactions. If the situation suddenly seems unfavorable to an addicted person, he/she may flee indefinitely or become combative. Addiction holds onto its ground (The mind of the addict) with great tenacity.

If you are thinking about asking a loved one who may or may not be aware that you are concerned about them to take a drug test to determine what if any drugs they may be abusing, you should first carefully assess and prepare for how to do this in the best way possible for all parties. If you are at all hesitant about making decisions in this area, you should seek the counsel of a trained professional to work with directly and lead you through the entire process. There are many trained professionals with years of experience who can help you to think clearly and rationally and even assist you and your family in person by meeting with you individually or as a group an/or coming to you directly.

If you are reasonably certain that your loved one may react adversely to the request to be drug tested (become

angry or prone to runaway), you should most definitely seek a professionals help and advice on how to strat-egize the best way to obtain information going forward and assist your loved one in possibly getting some help.If youre just in the beginning stages of investigation of these issues you should also begin to create healthy habits for yourself. There is a collection of fellowships available in most areas for parents, family members, and friends of addicts and alcoholics that meet regularly to discuss and support each other. These groups are very wise and are highly recommended to anyone who has been touched directly or indirectly by addiction. These groups can help you but do require some effort on your part. You may need to be diligent on attendance until you build your muscles. Sometimes the ideas presented in these meetings are different from our own and can make parents react adversely. There are many different kinds of groups. Three to start with are:

Alanonhttp://www.al-anon.alateen.org www.al-anon.alateen.org

Naronon nar-anon.org

Families Anonymous familiesanonymous.org

It is probably wise in most circumstances NOT to unexpectedly ask your loved one to take a drug test. Lets briefly mention a couple additional inappropriate reasons for drug testing.

A drug test should not be used to win an argument or prove a point. It should be a fact-finding mission and part of a total plan that may result in an intervention or in helping a sick person to get some help. Drug

Regular drug testing works best therapeutically as an accountability-enhancer. That is, if a person is trying to become and stay clean and sober, it may help them to set up an accountability system wherein they are regularly drug tested and the results of the testing are shared with others who are playing a supportive role in their recovery. It will be of great benefit for those who are close to the newly recovering person to be kept in the loop, and it could be normatively gratifying for the recovering person to personally view and share the positive results of testing with their close supporters.

To be sure, most people would consider themselves very lucky to find themselves in the position described above wherein their loved is willingly complying with a treatment plan that includes drug testing. If you find yourself at this point, congratulate yourself, for you have surely done a lot of good work in first identifying that there is a problem and then working cooperatively as a family toward a common goal.

Most people will find themselves in the following three positions: We are not sure that our loved one has been or is currently using drugs. We think our loved one may be experimenting or using certain drugs but we are not sure if they have crossed the threshold into hard drugs or have a problem with the drugs we know they are using. Our loved one certainly has been using drugs and we strongly believe they are actively engaged in lies or deception to cover up their problem.

It is not the purpose of this book to comprehensively address whether or not your loved one has a problem. But we will briefly mention several ways to determine this. This question should be explored further with professional help.

Does he or she have a problem?

In rare cases there is a direct admission from the person that they have a problem, perhaps after being confronted. It may also arise spontaneously. These are short windows of opportunity that should be exploited immediately to get someone away from their current situation and into treatment that can save their life. These short windows of opportunity are gifts and sometimes labeled moments of clarity. Wouldnt it be nice to already have a plan in place for when this happens? The shorter the amount of time it takes you to react as a parent or loved one of the struggling person with a plan of help, the greater the chances of successfully getting the person the help they need. This is why it is helpful to investigate options. We prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and in so doing have a positive yet realistic preparedness for what life may present.

You may also seek advice from a professional such as an addiction trained therapist, physician, counselor, interventionist, or consultant who can help you determine, based on the information that you provide them, if your loved one may have a problem. Many professionals will maintain ongoing relationships with you and your family. You could also setup an appointment or evaluation with a professional for your son or daughter to help determine if there is in fact a problem.

DRUG TESTING YOUR RECOVERING LOVED ONE

If you decided to go ahead and drug test your loved one and carefully followed our suggestions from before then you must have calculated some agreeableness from your loved one with regard to participating in a process that may help them. Hopefully, this agreeableness persists even amidst the tension created by a negative test.

If it does not, then you will need to seek professional help, and if you believe that your loved one may need help then you may need to investigate doing an intervention. It may be wise to begin investigating the topic of interventions now in order to be well prepared if the need arises. This will not be covered in sufficient detail in this book. If you are interested, contact a professional. Then, you can have an immediate on-the spot plan in place in response to a positive result. As part of your intervention, you may ask that the person to go to a specific treatment program that has already been picked out. It is very wise to have already investigated programs and decided on a suitable program should the need for treatment arise.

People do cheat on drug tests

Just because someone has tested negative for substance use after taking a drug test, it does not mean that they havent used any drugs. Since drug test products began being manufactured, just as many drug test products have been manufactured to beat drug tests. There are numerous products available that the test subject can consume that will alter the subjects urine in such a way as to mask the presence of drug or drug metabolites and/or change the quality of the urine specimen render-ing a positive test result impossible. Many young adults know about these products and it is also common for these products to be sold directly at specialty stores.

Types of Drug Tests

The following section will provide some introductory information on the 4 major forms of drug testing available today. These most common forms of drug testing include screening a subjects urine, blood, hair, or saliva for trace amounts of common drugs of abuse, drug metabolites (what the body breaks drugs down into), or the bodys immunity agents (how the body responds chemically to drugs) that are produced in response to drugs entering the bodys system.

Urine Screening

This is the most common form of drug testing. It typically involves the testing agent requesting the subject to produce a sample of urine into a plastic cup. There are many different products that can be used to test in this way. Some can detect the presence of drugs almost immediately. This is typically referred to as on-site testing. Materials for this type of testing are available to consumers and this type of test can be facilitated at home.

Reference lab testing is typically facilitated at a laboratory and the test subject is given a certain amount of time to report to a lab to produce a specimen. The results typically take longer to process, at least 24 hours. Overall, urine testing is considered the tried and truest from of drug testing.

Blood Screening

Blood screening is typically conducted during acute emergency situations to gather information about what a subject may currently have in his or her system. There is typically a moderately short window of time in which

testing should not be conducted without a reasonable and immediate plan of action that testing is one part of.

Specific planning instructions will be addressed a little later in this book. If you have carefully assessed the potential risks and have decided that you are in fact going to drug test your loved one and have a plan in place, you should be adequately prepared emotionally and mentally to handle the results of what you discover when you do test your loved one.

It will be very tempting to place a huge amount of stock in the results of a drug test because of the expectations and belief systems that are at play here. Many people set themselves up for further problems by treating a drug test like a lie-detector test or like a judge, jury, and executioner all at once. Drug tests should not be treated this way.

A clean test may mean a sense of great relief to a person. A dirty test may mean a great sense of defeat, anger, or sadness. One should keep things in perspective. Lets go over the two possible results (positive and negative) a little more below in our next section, which is devoted entirely to planning.

The Two part Plan: (positive or negative result)

We have mentioned that a drug test should be a part of a larger plan to gather facts and assist a person further.

Just because the person has tested clean does not mean your concerns and misgivings about their unusual behavior recently are not valid and should not still be of concern to you. Passing a drug test does not magically elevate someone to a status of healthy living. A clean

test, as we have seen does not even mean that the person has not been using drugs.

Drug tests are imperfect measurement devices and can produce a false negative or can sometimes not detect drug use accurately due to threshold minimums, and human physical characteristics and metabolic processes. People can also cheat on a drug test, using various methods to make it appear as though they have not been using drugs at all.

In the case of a negative test result, you should continue to monitor the person of concerns behavior and possibly setup a schedule for further drug screening. You should clearly articulate your concerns to them and as much as you can try to garner understanding between both parties instead of defensiveness. We suggest that you use your intuition. If all the signs of a problem are there minus the sometimes unrelaibale evidence provided by a drug test, proceed with further support, investigate treatment options, and possibly consider an intervention

So what if the person of concern tests positive for drugs? And to make this even more interesting: what if they test positive for hard drugs or drugs that you didnt even expect that they were using at all? Does this mean that the person is doomed to a life of failure, criminality, and premature death? To be sure, addiction is a chronic, progressive, and potentially fatal illness. But are all people that fail a drug test stricken with the active illness of addiction? No, of course they are not. However, if this person is an addict, then the test result is a gift as it may lead all parties one step closer to the truth. We have to first know the truth about ourselves and our situations before we can get anywhere. Our hope for you is that a drug test can play a small but important role in your familys process of truth-discovering.

Hair test: 30 to 90 days is the anticipated amount of time that cocaine metabolites would be found in the hair.

Saliva Test: 2-4 days

Blood Test: During acute intoxication. If a blood test detects cocaine metabolites it could also detect it for a couple days.

OpiatesOpiates have become very popular drugs of abuse, especially among young people. Street forms such as heroin are cheap and prevalent but many users begin use with pharmaceuticals like oxycodone. Opiates can be ingested orally, intranasally, inhaled or injected. Most opiates are converted into morphine by the human body and are detected as such. Methadone, oxycodone, codeine, and propoxyphene are exceptions to this rule and are detected exclusively.

Urine Test: Heroin (as morphine)2 days Morphine- --------------- 2-3 days Methadone--------------- 3 days (can be as long as 7-9 depending on usage) Codeine------------------- 2 days Propoxyphene----------- 6 hours- 2 days

Hair test: 30 to 90 days. All of the subcategories above may not be currently detectable through hair. Be sure to inquire before purchasing a testing kit.

Blood test: 1-2 days

Saliva Test: 2-4 days

MarijuanaMarijuana is typically smoked or cooked into foods and ingested. THC, the active drug in marijuana, is fat soluble which means that heavy usage can result in marijuana being absorbed into fat cells. This results in much longer potential detection windows.

Urine Test: Single use-2 to 7 daysFrequent and repeated, regular use: up to 36 days

Hair test: 30 to 90 days

Blood test: Depending on the regularity and amount of usage, from 2-7 days after last use

Saliva Test: Several days. However, if you are testing specifically for marijuana, saliva testing is not the ideal method if testing as it has proven somewhat unreliable in testing for THC.

Benzodiazepines (xanax, valium, kolonopin)Benzodiazepines are more recently developed anti-anxiety drugs that produce sedation, and a high and have largely taken the place of barbiturates as the most popular sedative pill abused today.

Urine Test: Regular therapeutic dose-3 daysExtended or chronic use-14 hours to 7 days (short acting vs. long acting)

Hair test: 30 to 90 days

Blood test: This is variable depending on use of long acting vs. short acting benzodiazepines

Saliva Test: Unknown

a drug would be present in the blood stream. However, if you are testing for drug metabolites or the smaller broken down parts of drugs, you may be able to detect drugs for a longer window of time. There are blood tests that do test for metabolites and so can detect for a greater window of time. During a blood test, the subject has his or her blood drawn by a trained medical professional. It is typically drawn from the subjects arm.

Saliva Screening

Saliva testing is a newer form of drug testing. It has been determined to be a reliable form of testing to determine recent drug use and has a similar window of detection period to urine. Saliva testing is a simple procedure that involves a toothbrush like swab without bristles that is left in the mouth long enough to collect a sample of saliva. The sample is then tested for the presence of drugs and/or metabolites. Saliva testing can test for some of the more common drugs. It has not been proven to be all that reliable for testing of marijuana THC.

Hair Screening

Drug metabolites stay in the hair long enough for drug use to be detected for up to 90 days after use. Because of this ability to test for the presence of drugs for such a long period of time, this form of drug testing has become increasingly popular and useful for agencies and legal proceedings where drug detection can be very signifi-cant. A sample of any form of body hair, typically 80-120 strands, is extracted and tested using a laboratory service.

Drug Detection Windows

This next section will investigate the windows of time in which the most common drugs of abuse can be detected using the most common types of testing (Urine, hair, saliva). There are many different factors that may lead to variation in these numbers. All of the following data are to be viewed as approximations only. There is significant variation even within the categories of testing as there are numerous companies that make different kinds of tests within each category. Many of these tests are different and so have different sensitivities. Also, every persons body and metabolism are different and so there can be significant variation in detection time on an individual basis. Parents should ask questions about a test before purchasing one or paying for services in order to make sure you are getting a test that will be able to detect the drugs you may be looking for.

Cocaine (powder cocaine, crack cocaine);

Usage and Facts:Cocaine is typically found in powder form and it is snorted or ingested intranasally. It can also be smoked (freebased), injected directly into the bloodstream, or eaten. There is also a derivative of cocaine called crack cocaine that is smoked.

Cocaine is rapidly metabolized by the human body. As such, effective testing for cocaine involves detecting metabolites that cocaine is broken down into by the body.

Urine Test: Cocaine can be detected in the urine for 2 days after a single use and for 3-4 days after repeated usage.

AlcoholAlcohol is the most pervasively abused drug in the world. Until recently , the detection time for alcohol was rather brief as one could only test for alcohol. With the advent of testing for alcohol metabolites, alcohol can be detected for several days and for long periods of time in hair follicles.

Urine Test: 1 to 12 hours, metabolite ethylglucuronide- 80 hours

Hair test: 30 to 90 days

Blood test: 12 hours, longer if testing for the metbaolite

Saliva Test: up to several days with metabolite testing

Amphetamines/ Methamphetamine: Methamphetamine is one of the most destructive and toxic addictive substances.

Urine Test: 2-3 days

Hair test: 30 to 90 days

Blood test: 1-2 days

Saliva Test: 2-4 days

We sincerely hope that this short book has been helpful to you and your family. Please make your own decisions about drug testing. However, If we could make three humble suggestions, the first would be that you at least discuss your concerns and plans with other people, ideally those who are trained in addiction treatment and support.

Secondly, please educate yourself as much as you can on addiction. If you are in a crisis situation you may not have adequate time to do this and so you should place your trust in a reputable professional and follow his or her suggestions. Then, when you have an opportunity you should begin to learn and understand addiction.

Finally, please seek support for yourself in family groups such as those suggested previously. If another persons addiction is affecting your life in a negative way and leading you to personal unmanageability, anxiety, or obsession then this disease has claimed yet another victim. Seek help to support your own alertness and peace of mind and then you will be in the best position to help your sick loved one when and if the need presents itself.

May your journey be blessed.

Sincerely,

Todd WelchThe Parent Solutions Team

Book sources and references: Dasgupta, A. (2010) Drugs of Abuse Testing. Sudbury, Mass. Jones&Bartlett pub

Jenkins, A. & Goldberger, B. (2002) On-Site Drug Testing. New Jersey. Totowa Press

Coombs, R., West, L. (1991) Drug Testing: Issues and Options. New York. Oxford University Press

Drugs of Abuse Reference Guide, LabCorp Inc, Retrieved online May 22, 2011

Parent Solutions Manual Drug testing: An easy reference and guidebook

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