The legalization of marijuana use, either for medical, recreational, or both, has led to an increase in positive marijuana tests as reported by Quest Diagnostics. In 2019 the percentage of positive tests was 3.1%. In 2023 the number rose to 4.5%. However, the number of positive tests is not the only thing that has gone up. The number of workers cheating on their drug tests has also risen.

It seems that you really can buy anything online these days. Synthetic urine, powdered urine, or other people’s urine can be purchased online. People will use these “samples” to try to cheat their drug test.

Some try passing off another person’s urine as their own. Some people even try using urine from animals. This is usually caught at the testing site because the specimen is expected to be at body temperature while samples brought in to cheat the test are either at a lower temperature or could be at a temperature that is too high because the person tried to microwave the sample to raise the temperature.

Synthetic urine is made up of creatinine, yellow coloring, uric acid, urea, water, and pH balance. It is made to test various products such as diapers and mattresses to see what impact urine has on these and other products. Because it is made to mimic urine it usually has the same density and can be hard to detect. However, labs that work to improve their testing methods have come up with ways to detect when urine is synthetic.

People will also add things to their urine to make the sample invalid. According to Quest, oxidizing adulterants are most commonly used, and they define oxidizing adulterants as:

A substance that acts alone or in combination with other substances to oxidize drugs or drug metabolites to prevent the detection of the drugs or drug metabolites or affects the reagents in either the initial or confirmatory drug test. Examples of these agents include, but are not limited to, nitrites, pyridinium chlorochromate, chromium (VI), bleach, iodine, halogens, peroxidase and peroxide.

Trying to “clean” out their system is another way workers attempt to cheat drug tests. This can be combined with delaying taking the test to give substances time to get out of their system or to give them time to try various methods to clean out their system.

Many states have laws against trying to cheat a drug test and anyone caught could end up with a misdemeanor or a felony on their record in addition to paying fines.

While there may not be much an employer can do about preventing their employees from trying to cheat a drug test, one thing employers can do is to make sure they don’t give employees too much time between the time they are notified of the testing requirement and the deadline for taking the test. Three days is a good rule of thumb for an initial test. If the person has to go back for a second test, they should go within 24 hours of being notified.

ASE Connect

Sources: hallbenefitslaw.com; Questdiagnostics.com; Michiganworkssouthwest.org; JDSupra; disa.com; cnsoccmed.com; ritecaremc.com