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How Urine Drug Testing Works

 

It's important to note that urine drug screens cannot detect all drugs, nor can they definitively prove that a drug is not present in the urine. Many test options are available that, when combined with other measures such as pill counts, can help physicians make informed decisions regarding their patients' care. These test options fall into one of the following categories:

  • Immunoassay drug testing. Also known as qualitative drug testing, this test provides a result of "present" or "not present."

  • Laboratory-based specific drug identification. Also known as quantitative drug testing, this test provides the specific levels of substances detected in the urine.

 

Urine drug tests "screen" the urine for the presence of a parent drug or its metabolite(s). The level of drug or its metabolite(s) is not predictive of when the drug was taken or how much the patient used. Rather, it is simply a confirmatory report indicating the presence of the parent drug or its metabolite(s). Urine is generally considered the best medium to measure in terms of detecting drugs and drug metabolite(s). Compared to blood, urine offers a longer window of detection that may be one to three days for some drugs and up to 30 days for others. Urine drug testing is by far the most extensively studied and validated process for drug testing.

 

WINDOWS OF DETECTION OF DRUGS IN URINE

Amphetamines  -  up to three days

THC  -  Single Use  - up to three days
THC  -  Chronic Use  - up to thirty days

Benzoylecgonine after cocaine use -  two to four days

Opiates such as morphine and codeine  -  two to three days

Methadone  - up to three days

EDDP (methadone metabolite)  -  up to six days

Benzodiazepines  -  days to weeks

 

OTHER SECTIONS UNDER WHY UDT?

The Need for UDT

How UDT Screen Works

The Science of Urine

UDT Methods

Process of UDT

Commonly Abused Drugs

UDT Law in Florida

 

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