Drug Test
Many employers simply cannot take the chance that one of their employees is abusing illegal drugs. A company such as a trucking firm could lose millions if an employee doing drugs was involved in a wreck. Therefore, many companies now require that a drug test be administered before hiring employees. A urine test can screen for use of drugs by a potential employee. When giving a drug test, employers are usually looking for marijuana, cocaine, opiate, and/or amphetamine usage. If the urine test comes back positive, that does not necessarily mean that drug abuse has occurred. To investigate further, the urine sample may then be sent to a laboratory for further analysis.
Many companies today are going so far as to administer their own initial urine drug tests. If you are in charge of this, you should know that the standard urine drug test is usually be good for between 12 and 18 months. The foil pack will list an expiration date, so always check that before you give it to a potential employee for testing. The person taking the drug test should be sent into a single bathroom to prevent any cheating.
How long will drugs stay in someone’s system? The street drugs that employers are usually looking for can last in the urine for 2 or 3 days. It also takes a few hours for the drug to be detectible in the urine after usage. If someone tests positive for marijuana, do not let them tell you it is from secondhand smoke. The test will only return positive through use of marijuana, not secondhand smoke exposure. However, legal medications may return a positive drug test result. This is especially true of over-the-counter drugs that contain pseudophedrine (often found in sinus and cold medication). Further analysis will determine if this is the drug that caused the positive drug test.
Disclaimer: Cliff Schaffer does not personally endorse or support any of the comments made within the writings of this article.
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