Advantages Of Saliva Drug Tests

Some school and hospitals, and offices / institutions conduct drug testing. There are a number of effective ways that this can be done and this including: the pre-employment testing, the random testing, the reasonable suspicion/cause testing, the post-accident testing, the return to the duty testing, and the follow up testing. This usually involves the collecting urine, the saliva or other biological samples to detect the presence of drugs such as the marijuana, the cocaine, the amphetamines, the PCP, and the opiates. (National Institute on Drug Abuse)

Although, our body has a wide range of biological samples and fluid options. One of the most commonly used biological fluid to test for drugs is our saliva. The saliva is actually a refined version of the plasma that has the ability to contain the trace amounts of drugs and its ensuing metabolites for some time. This forms the basis of saliva drug test and is also sometimes referred as “oral fluid drug test”.

Advantages

There are various advantages of oral fluid drug testing compared to other biological drug tests. Here are a few notable facts.

1. Oral fluid drug tests has an early detection window which makes it the best choice for impairment and post-accident testing. This early detection would also be an excellent marker for dosage monitoring.
2. There is no travel time to the other organs. You do not have to wait for the drug to reach the kidneys and other organs for the drug metabolites to be secreted and extracted.
3. Fast turnaround. There are a lot of existing products available worldwide ranging from test strips, mouth swabs, sprays and many more. Which, in minutes would project immediate results.
4. Collection is easier and non-invasive. (This is in reference to using blood and urine samples)
5. There is constant supervision. Unlike the common urine samples wherein it could be easily switched and tampered in bathrooms.

Although there are various advantages of using the saliva, it could post difficulties and sometimes inaccuracies when there is mouth dryness. Which may impede in the ability to collect sufficient samples.

If you are working for the government drug testing is required. However, if you are in the private sector you have the right to refuse a salivary drug test. Which may also cause your employer or potential employer to keep an eye on you at the refusal.

Illegal drugs has not brought good to people. Stay away from them and have a good life ahead. Cheers!