Why choose hair for drug and alcohol testing?
A hair drugs test offers a longer window of detection than alternative testing and provides a detailed month-on-month view and an overall picture of drug use. This can highlight trends of drug use, suggest abstinence or show evidence of use depending on the length of the hair sample.
When a drug is taken it is absorbed into the blood stream and circulated around the body. As a result, it is incorporated into the hair follicle meaning that as the hair grows, drugs are transferred into the hair strand. It can take up to 2 weeks for drug components to enter the hair and therefore analysis of a 3cm sample is recommended.
Randox Testing Services offer a combined analysis for hair alcohol testing as an aid in the determination of chronic excessive alcohol consumption. A combination test of alcohol markers ethyl glucuronide (EtG) and fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEE) help provide evidence to assess chronic excessive alcohol consumption but cannot be used to demonstrate abstinence of alcohol consumption.
This testing method is commonly used by employers for pre-employment screening which is an increasingly common type of workplace drug and alcohol testing. It forms an essential part of a company’s recruitment process. Hair testing is also heavily used in substance abuse assessment in child protection cases.
Body hair can be used to provide an extended window of up to 1 year of drug use.
Randox Testing Services
At Randox Testing Services we provide drug and alcohol testing to all professional bodies within the medico-legal sector and all workplaces from any industry. Through utilising innovative multiplex drug and alcohol screening methods as well as LC/GC mass spectrometry confirmatory analysis our complete service guarantees reliable and accurate results.
Our hair drug test along with all other testing services are flexible and can be tailored to our customer needs with a choice of testing methods. We offer a comprehensive drugs of abuse test menu and our service also includes expert witness reporting where applicable.
To get in touch with one of our experts about hair drug testing contact testingservices@randox.com or call +44 (0) 161 741 2760.