What Are the Different Types of Drug Tests?

Modern medicine has many options for drug testing, which you can do on your own or at drug treatment centers and clinics.

Where to get a drug test

It takes a couple of minutes to determine from urine or saliva whether a person is using psychostimulants or not. In cases where the drug test must be passed in order to obtain an official certificate for law enforcement agencies, presentation to the personnel department for employment, or in other cases, studies of this kind are conducted in specialized organizations that have the appropriate accreditation. An express drug test is available at home. It can be purchased here or at a regular pharmacy.

Hair testing

If a person periodically uses psychostimulants, their breakdown products can be found in various organs and tissues of his body, including hair. This type of test can detect the presence of a controlled substance in the hair, even if it entered the body several months ago. Since this test is very sensitive, it can indicate chronic drug use or sporadic drug use. The positive sides of the hair test include the ease of taking the biomaterial for the study. In addition, the drug test will provide an opportunity to determine the type of psychostimulant and the chronology of its use by month. The drug, entering the body, quickly spreads throughout the body with the bloodstream, the tiniest capillaries are also in the root of the hair.

Therefore, toxins produced by the breakdown of psychoactive substances in the blood accumulate in them as well. In the process of hair growth, chemical compounds leave their trace on a certain area of the hair shaft. Thus, a hair with a length of 3-4 cm can give information about the strong substances that the person used in the last three months. The longer the hair, the longer the period. Moreover, from the examined material it is possible to know the chronology of drug abuse, its type, and the purity of the substance. It is best to take a bundle of hair from the head for analysis. This material is the most suitable for the study. However, hair taken from the armpits or other parts of the body is also suitable. But in this case, you can only identify the fact of drug use. More detailed information can not be obtained.

Chemico-toxicological tests for drugs

The most accurate test to determine if a person has a strong substance in his body is the chemical-toxicological test. It can be used to check whether the subject has used illegal drugs, alcohol, or neurotropic drugs. Urine is used as the biomaterial for the test. Chemotoxicological test has several advantages over laboratory blood tests. First, psychotropic substances remain active longer in the urine and are easier to detect.

Secondly, chemical-toxicological testing involves the use of modern, specialized toxicological laboratory equipment, which positively affects the quality of the analysis. Drugs are processed and eliminated from the body within a few days. Therefore, at this time psychostimulant metabolites are easier to detect in the urine. As a rule, traces of toxins appear in the urine a few hours after they enter the esophagus or blood.

Algorithm of actions

Urine chemical-toxicological test is done in several stages: qualitative analysis, which allows you to determine the presence of the drug in the tested liquid and its type; quantitative assessment of potent substances by chromatography; assessment of the degree of poisoning of the body with narcotic substances. The accuracy of the results can be affected by the quality of the biomaterial under study. Therefore, the collection and storage of urine must be taken very seriously. Nowadays, a chemical test can be carried out using simpler methods. For example, using an express test for drugs. But it is possible to get a high accuracy result only in a specialized laboratory.