Beating Drug Tests by Ingesting Detoxifying Agents or Adulterating Urine in vitro: Are These Practices Effective?

BACKGROUND

Workplace drug testing aims to deter employees from abusing drugs. Nevertheless, people try to beat such tests in several ways. Therefore, it is important for drug-testing laboratories to identify adulterated specimens before analysis.

METHODS

A literature search on beating drug tests, urine adulteration, flushing agents, detoxifying agents, and Internet-based adulterants, published in English from 1986 to present, was conducted using PubMed, ScienceDirect, Scopus, Web of Science, and ResearchGate.

RESULTS

People try to beat drug testing in two ways: by ingesting detoxifying agents to wash out abused drugs or by adding adulterants (household chemicals or Internet-based chemicals) to urine in vitro. However, drug-testing laboratories conduct specimen validity tests (pH, creatinine, specific gravity, and temperature tests) and specialized tests to identify adulterants, such as potassium nitrite, glutaraldehyde, pyridinium chlorochromate, and oxidants in urine.

CONCLUSIONS

By combining specimen integrity and specialized tests to detect adulterants, laboratory staff can identify adulterated urine specimens before analytical testing. As such adulterated specimens are considered equivalent to refusal to undergo drug testing, individuals that altered their samples fail the test. Nevertheless, workplace drug-testing programs have limitations, including the inability to target novel psychoactive drugs in the test protocol and the inability to detect newly introduced urinary adulterants.