cheat drug test urine

More drug testing leads to more methods of deception

By Leslie Mann | Gala to the Chicago Tribune
August 19, 2008



Yes, employees are getting more and more candid in their efforts to falsify employers' drug tests. But, employers are on to them and their efforts mostly fail.

This according to Amitava Dasgupta, professor of pathology and laboratory cure-all at the University of Texas-Houston Medical School. After studying this subject-matter for the last few years, he recently presented his findings to members of the American Confederation for Clinical Chemistry at its annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

"I became interested in the ways people cheat when our convalescent home started drug testing," says Dasgupta. "I went diggings and called some 800 numbers I found online and found I could buy anything I wanted [to trump up a test] as long as I gave them my credit card number." It's unclear how many products are out there, he says, but new ones are hitting the superstore all the time.

Whatever it takes

This industry is a large, underground one with veteran chemists, says Dasgupta. Hand over your money, and they will send you Bright Fizz Detox Tablets for $31.99 or Urine Luck for $35, for standard.

In the past, some drug users added household products such as blench, toilet bowl cleaner or vinegar to their urine. And while buying man-made urine or urine from drug-free people has been the cheaters' modus operandi for years now, says Dasgupta, the peddle now includes lots of new products that alter urine, either by ingesting them or by adding them to urine samples.

Dasgupta says he is amazed how unsophisticated people can be. "Some people think if you spend all this money—and some of these products cost a lot—they will travail," he says. "Not all do. Or, people use them wrong."

Marijuana is the most abused drug, says Dasgupta. Other drugs commonly detected in hand screenings are cocaine, amphetamines, phencyclidine (PCP or "angel dust") and benzodiazepines...

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