Opioid hair concentrations using retrospective prescription data from a United States workplace testing population.

Opioids are widely prescribed pain medications that have the potential for misuse and abuse. As part of a routine procedure, Psychemedics frequently encounters questions from clients/Medical Review Officers regarding opioid hair concentrations in relation to the amount of opioids taken as part of a prescription. In this article, we have analyzed a large number of real-world examples of opioid hair concentrations following self-reported consumption of an opioid prescription regimen. This dataset provides a reference point of opioid hair concentrations after an extensive aqueous wash that likely corresponds to consumption of an opioid prescription regimen. Practitioners in the field could use this reference to make decisions on the opioid concentration of a hair sample in relation to a client-provided prescription.