Drug Testing

A technical examination of a biological material, such as urine, hair, blood, breath, sweat, or oral fluid/saliva, is used in a drug test to ascertain the presence or absence of a specific parent drug or its metabolites. Employers and parole/probation officials screening for substances that are illegal (such cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin) and police officers checking for the presence and concentration of alcohol (ethanol) in the blood, generally referred to as BAC, are some major uses of drug testing (blood alcohol content). While the great majority of drug tests in sports and the workplace involve urine, BAC tests are often conducted using a breathalyser. There are other additional techniques with differing degrees of precision, sensitivity (detection threshold/cutoff), and detection period exist.