Types of Drug Testing Kits

The basic four drug testing kits include hair follicles, urine, sweat, or saliva. You can even purchase these drug test kits in most grocery and drugstores or online if you want to test at home. When being drug tested for a job the prospective employee usually does not know which test will be used.

Hair follicles

This type of drug testing is more expensive than saliva and urine testing but it is more accurate. It is also much hard to manipulate this test than other drug tests. If you have done drugs ninety days or more before you had the test, any drugs that you used can be detected by using the hair follicle testing. Because it has to be sent to a lab for diagnosis, the results from it will take awhile and will not be an instantaneous result. After getting the hair follicles from your head, they are sent to the lab. Once the lab receives them, they are put in some chemicals to break down the hair follicles. It can reveal evidence of different drugs like amphetamines, marijuana, angel dust, methamphetamines along with some prescribed medications.

Urine

This type of drug test is accurate, cost effective, and easy to use. This is why many favor using this one. If you are applying for a job and have to take a drug test this is the one that will provide quick results. This particular drug test can detect approximately ten drugs in your system at any given time. With this drug test, it can detect drug use up to thirty days before you take the test. It can be easily contaminated. This is the test most employers used but now they also use the hair follicle and saliva drug tests.

Sweat

This is a drug test that is commonly not used at home for testing. For this type of test, the special drug-testing patch is affixed to your skin to collect information over a seven to fourteen day period. This patch has safety measures so it cannot be removed, replaced without the tester knowing about it. After removing the patch, it will be sent to a lab to be processed for the results. Some people consider this type of drug test very intrusive and unreliable.

Saliva

This type of drug test is also referred to as an oral drug test. This type of drug test is good at detecting any drug use that has recently occurred, usually between one and two days. They are also liked because of their cost effectiveness, accuracy, and easy to use. It is also harder to manipulate this type of drug test. No one else can take the test as ID is usually needed to verify identification.