With the growing number of illicit drug users in the country, the methods for evasion are continually evolving.
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With the growing number of illicit drug users in the country, the methods for evasion are continually evolving. As long as there are drug users, there are people who are actively trying to cheat the system of drug testing, from machines that clean urine or switching out positive urine with clean urine.
The latest threat to drug tests in Australia is synthetic urine, which is also known as “fake urine”. When did this become available to drug users and can drug tests detect fake urine?
Cheating Drug Tests Using Synthetic Urine
Fake urine was primarily used by product-testing laboratories for purposes of quality control, such as in leak-proof diapers. Now, synthetic urine is commercially available to illicit drug users seeking to fool a drug test and avoid detection. It’s easy to purchase a fake urine sample online. And for just a small sum of money. A casual search on the internet leads you to websites that promise to beat your drug test.
As the number of drug-using employees in the workforce increase, so will the use of synthetic urine. As drug testing companies create more sophisticated drug testing methods, so will the drug users who try to cheat a drug test.
Does synthetic urine actually work? Can drug users actually evade detection? The answer is yes. The fact is particularly worrying especially for employees in safety-sensitive industries.
Synthetic Urine as a Substitution
Synthetic or fake urine is equivalent to artificial urine and is a substitution method to evade a conclusive positive test result. Its design mimics real human urine and contains the very same components found in real human urine. Creatinine, ammonia, and nitrates are also present in synthetic urine. Even the odor of fake urine is the same as that of real urine. Manufacturers of fake urine make sure that the synthetic urine is undetectable even to drug testing companies and can be purchased for as low as $15.
What’s even more worrying is that synthetic urine can be purchased at truck stops. Clearly, this means a big percentage of illicit drug users are employed to drive vehicles. This endangers not just the drivers themselves but also other people’s lives.
Can Drug Tests Detect Synthetic Urine?
Although it’s not 100 percent successful, synthetic urine will only be more useful to illicit drug users desperate to evade detection. Other less sophisticated options focus on dilution. Drug users have used dog urine, lemonade, and various household products in an attempt to give negative or inconclusive results.
Not all drug testing companies have sophisticated fake urine detection methods that include validity and pH tests. Validity tests are tests that include checking the temperature and creatinine levels of a urine sample. Whereas a pH level test helps determine if the urine sample is a diluted sample.
Fake Urine Detection in Australia
Safework Health’s national network of drug testing laboratories can detect synthetic urine.
Our specialists have improved our drug testing methods as a response to synthetic urine use in drug tests.
We can spot synthetic urine by identifying biological compounds that are not present in fake urine. To combat attempts at cheating a drug test, we have further developed an enhanced screening and detecting technology by identifying more biological markers. Our urine drug testing method is sophisticated and our testing tools are highly sensitive to synthetic urine.
We apply all this to all urine specimens we receive in our laboratory to stay ahead of the ever-evolving methods of cheating that illicit drug users use.
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Contact us today to learn how you can keep your workplace safe from drugs and alcohol.