Origin Diagnostics Drug Testing

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Ketamine: Ketamine, also known as special K, K, vitamin K, and fort dodge, is a derivative of PCP (a powerful psychedelic drug) that has become increasingly popular. Although more difficult to produce than PCP, users can obtain large, inexpensive quantities from veterinary pharmacies in Mexico. Ketamine is commonly used in hospitals for sedation and pain relief.

• What it looks like: Ketamine is abused in clubs and other social situations. Most often, ketamine is inhaled, but it may also be injected into muscle or fat just below the skin or placed into the rectum. It has also been used to ease the crash associated with cocaine or amphetamine binges.
• What it does: Ketamine increases blood pressure, heart rate, muscle tone, and salivation. The clinical effects begin within minutes and last up to an hour. Overdose, which is often referred to as falling into a “K hole,” is common. Overdose is characterized by severe brain-body dissociation, or inability to sense what the environment is really like, and vomiting, restlessness, and tiredness. Ketamine can also produce an emergence reaction resulting in nightmares, floating sensation, visual and hearing disturbances, out-of-body experiences, agitation, and confusion that last up to a day after drug use. During this time, users are not necessarily asleep and usually remember the event.
• Harmful effects: Although the long-term effects of ketamine abuse have not been well studied, it is suggested that out-of-body experiences may recur even without additional use of the drug, and psychosis (severe mental instability) from chronic use may occur.

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GHB is the common name for gamma gydroxybutyric. It is a drug legitimately used to treat insomnia, narcolepsy and depression. This drug is also used as a general anesthetic. However, GHB is also used for date rape, along with other date rape drugs such as Ketamine and Rohypnol.

GHB is a tasteless, odorless and colorless drug. It can be very difficult to notice if someone has slipped it into your food or drink, which means that you should always be very careful about accepting food or drink from strangers whenever you go out. The initial symptoms of drug abuse can be very difficult to recognize, especially if you are not familiar with what to watch out for.

Signs and symptoms of GHB in the system can begin to show 10 to 20 minutes after you have consumed the drug. Depending on the dosage, the effects of the drug can last anywhere from 3 to 6 hours.

1. The first sign of drug abuse is an unusual sense of relaxation. You will feel as if you are merely intoxicated by alcohol. Moderate amounts of GHB can cause someone to lower his or her inhibitions. You will also start to feel drowsy and it is very possible that you will eventually pass out.

2. GHB can also make it difficult for you to think properly. You may have an impaired sense of judgment. You may also begin to experience hallucinations and later on experience insomnia.

3. Another symptom of drug abuse is amnesia or memory loss. GHB can cause someone to pass out and wake up with no memory of what happened a few hours before. Some victims of this drug find it extremely difficult to remember simple facts.

4. Another symptom that you were abused is nausea and possibly even vomiting. You will also have difficulty breathing, especially if GHB was mixed with alcohol and other drugs.

5. You may begin to experience tremors and migraines. You might begin to sweat profusely. These are also common signs of GHB in your system.

6. A common sign of drug abuse is slurred speech and the inability to form coherent sentences. You may be more talkative, but you may not necessarily be making any sense.

7. As GHB enters your body, your anxiety level will either increase or decrease. As the drug leaves your body, it will increase your heart rate and possibly cause hypertension.

8. Upon waking up, inspect your genital area for a physical sign of any abrasions or bruises. Signs of a struggle may mean you were drugged with GHB and were a victim of date rape.

These are some of the most common signs and symptoms of GHB abuse. If you notice that you have some of these symptoms, then immediately call a family member or go to the nearest police station.

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The federal government estimates that 71 percent of illegal drug users are employed, most working for small businesses.

It is estimated that employee drug use costs American employers over $100 billion each year. If you don’t have an employee drug screening program, you’re costing your company money.

Costs without Drug Screening:
Increased employee absenteeism
(66 percent higher absenteeism among drug users)
Costs in accidents and damages
(5 times more likely to file a workers’ compensation claim)
Increased costs for health care
(health benefit utilization is 84 percent greater in dollar terms)
Losses due to employee theft/fraud (disciplinary actions are 90 percent higher among drug users)

Benefits of Drug Screening:
Fewer accidents
Fewer disciplinary actions
Reduced losses due to absenteeism, theft, and fraud
Lower costs due to losses and errors
Reduced costs of insurance claims
Decreased legal costs and costs of hiring and training new employees
Earlier identification and resolution of problems affecting job performance

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Legal Considerations When Establishing a Drug-Testing Policy

* Employers who plan on conducting drug testing should, before the first test is ordered, establish a written policy governing when the testing will take place and how it will be performed. Having this information in place may help resolve any questions that arise in the future as to whether a particular test should be conducted, or whether it was conducted properly.

* Employers should also establish what type of drugs will be tested for. For example, the employer may only wish to test for cocaine, or may also wish to test for opiates, amphetamines, and the other drugs for which testing is available.

* Employers should also develop a written policy concerning what will happen to an applicant who tests positive for drug use. This type of planning can alleviate future issues concerning how applicants with positive results are handled. For many employers, positive results may mean that those applicants will automatically not be hired. Other employers may wish to give applicants a second chance or may, if such applicants are hired, ask that they participate in employer-sponsored drug or alcohol counseling as a condition of their employment.

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Each state has its own body of laws which concern workplace drug testing or monitoring. For example, Alaska has no mandatory drug-testing laws but does have voluntary drug-testing laws that employers must follow if they chose to conduct drug-testing of job applicants or employees.

In many states, employers have the legal right to test job applicants for drugs or alcohol provided the applicants know that the testing is part of the interview process for all employees.

In most situations, the testing cannot be conducted until the applicant has been offered a position.  Click on State Laws.

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Many people drink water to excess while trying to flush their body clean of drugs. There are two points to think about here:

Drinking lots of water does not work to cheat a drug screening test: Most screening tests check for dilution (too much water) and may reject your results if they believe this is what has occurred.
Water intoxication/overdose: You can drink too much water for your body to handle and cause damage to your body. If too much water is consumed, the kidneys cannot excrete enough fluid. Water intoxication can lead to headaches, blurred vision, cramps and eventually convulsions. For water to reach toxic levels, you would have to consume many litres a day.

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Drugs affect every person differently, and so drugs will be metabolised by every person differently. Drug testing results are always unique to the individual. This means that there are certain factors about you and your drug use that can affect these results. These include:

the strength of the drug
how much you use
how you use it
how often you use it
what other drugs you use.

Results are also affected by your unique body, such as your:

tolerance
sex and age
overall health and wellbeing
metabolism
mood and the environment you are in.

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According to a news report from the Los Angeles Times New Service, a study of 161 prescription and over the counter medications showed that 65 of them produced false positive drug test results in the most widely administered urine drug test procedure. Ronald Siegel, a psychopharmacologist at UCLA said ‘The widespread testing and reliance on tell-tale traces of drugs in the urine is simply a panic reaction invoked because the normal techniques for controlling drug use haven’t worked very well. The next epidemic will be testing abuse.” Currently there are more than 250 over-the-counter medications and prescription drugs that can cause false positives.  

Click on links to find false positive drugs:

Marijuana (THC)
Tricyclic Antidepressants (TCA)
Barbiturates (BAR)
Buprenorphine (BUP)
Benzodiazepines (BZO)
Phencyclidine (PCP)
Methadone (MTD)
Oxycodone (OXY)
Methamphetamine (MAMP)
Amphetamines (AMP)
Propoxyphene (PPX)
Opiates and Morphine (OPI or MOR)

Note: Cocaine (COC) and Ecstasy (MDMA) has no cross reaction drugs at this time.

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Knowing how easy it is to tamper with urine samples and alter test results. The first objective is to find out if the urine sample is legitimate.

Color: If a urine sample looks clear, one can suspect that it’s watered down and may reject the sample and inform the employer about an adulteration attempt.

Temperature: Urine should be between 91 and 97 degrees. NIDA certified labs will verify temperature. If it isn’t, it is a possibility that water has been added to the cup or a substitution has been added.

Creatinine: Creatinine is a substance produced by vertebrates, and it shows up in urine. If someone substitutes their urine with something other than urine, like Mountain Dew, they will test negative for drugs. The tester will most likely not get away with it because Mountain Dew contains zero Creatinine, and an adulterant test detects Creatinine levels to ensure that the sample is valid. Creatinine levels drop below normal when people dilute their urine. This tests to ensure that the subject didn’t drink unusual amounts of water.

pH: pH is often changed when people spike their sample with household products.

Specific gravity: An unusual specific gravity indicates that a sample has been tampered with.

Age: Age can not be tested using urine. There is a rumor that approximate age can be detected in urine, and is tested in medical insurance exams. It’s a myth. Gender: Gender cannot be tested either. As with age, there is a rumor that gender can be detected in urine, and is tested in medical insurance exams. It’s another myth. It may be argued that a pregnancy test can be used to detect the gender of the urine provider, but the same test is used to detect prostate cancer in males.

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Adulteration is the intentional tampering with a urine sample by the donor to avoid detection of illicit drug use. Successful adulteration produces a false-negative drug test result.

Adulterants have often been used to mask the presence of an illicit drug and thus cheat a drug test. Because most urine collection procedures do not involve direct supervision, it is possible to add adulterants after specimen collection. Household chemicals, such as bleach, acid, vinegar, lemon juice, eye drops and table salt are routinely used to beat drug tests. These agents can cause false negative test results from the immunoassays used in urine drugs of abuse testing. However, specimen integrity tests can detect the presence of such adulterants because of altered pH, specific gravity and/or temperature.

More recently, commercial adulterants with names like Stealth, Klear and Urine Luck have become available on the Internet. These adulterants, when added to urine, can cause false negative results in drugs-of-abuse immunoassays, as well as in some gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) confirmation tests. These commercial adulterants some times cannot be detected by routine specimen integrity testing. Recently, however, spot tests have been described to detect these adulterants.