Specimen validity testing refers to the elements used to determine the presence of drugs in one’s system. Urine is a popular specimen used for this purpose, as it is highly effective when it comes to drug testing. This is due to the volume of urine and how many metabolites it contains. As such, whether monitoring for compliance or drug abuse within the workplace, urine has become an accepted specimen validity test, as it’s useful for detecting the drug in the system within the past several days.
However, because people know when they likely will be positive for drug tests, they often attempt to tamper with their drug testing results. By doing so, they can fake-pass their drug tests and retain their job. However, while certain measures exist to fake-pass drug tests, SVT remains an effective way to detect when you try to cheat on a urine drug test.
Why People Tamper With Drug Tests
Drug tests often happen without adequate notice, and this is deliberate. If you want to know whether someone truly uses drugs, you cannot give them enough notice to remove the THC or reduce the creatinine level in their system. As such, most employers will give short notice for drug tests. This procedure can also be a part of job employment stages.
Some employers require your drug status because of the work’s nature, while others need it to ensure compliance with the relevant laws. So, it’s highly crucial to know what to do when you find yourself in such positions, especially if you have been involved in substance abuse.
While people have been getting smart about beating drug tests, clinics are also getting smart in that regard. SVTs are some of the ways they are keeping track. With SVTs, clinics can detect whether there has been some tampering with the urine submitted for testing, which will indicate something suspicious. With THC test strips, you can perform some tests yourself to ascertain the thc level you have in your system before your test day. This helps to keep you a step ahead.
How People Cheat Drug Screening
While preparing for a test, people mainly tamper with urine in three major ways.
Adulteration: This involves the addition of a substance or adulterants to the specimen collected for drug testing. The essence of the substance is to make the urine appear as though it contains no metabolite. This way, it masks the urine and attempts to strengthen its test validity.
Substitution: This involves a complete replacement of the urine with a different solution. This can be water with salt. However, it is often noticeable through its high creatinine level and certain gravity results.
Dilution: Dilution refers to ingesting a high volume of water to reduce the metabolites in the system. When the water dilutes urine, the metabolites get reduced to a low concentration level, and drops below the drug test cutoff. This often results in a negative test result.
Specimen Validity Testing And Substance Indicators
Consequently, SVTs are the procedures used to determine when any of the above tampering methods has occurred. The common test names are specific gravity, creatinine, oxidizing agents, and pH. For the normal urine specific gravity range, the temperature should be somewhere between 32.5°C and 37.7°C. You may also wonder what the normal pH range of urine is? The pH should sit somewhere between 4.7 and 7.8, while specific gravity should be between 1.003- 1030. Finally, creatinine concentration lies between 80.0 and 200.0 mg/dL.
To this end, people often use Creatinine Adjusted Formula to reduce the creatinine level in their system. Since creatinine level in the urine is one of the most effective indicators of a drug, the adjusted formula seeks to distort that. By normalizing the creatinine concentration, the urine is made to appear like it’s normal. Through this way, users say that you can beat SVTs as well.
But when SVTs detect certain adulterants or interfering materials in your urine, the urine test will be invalid. Essentially, any discord between your urine and a normal urine in terms of pH, temperature, and creatinine level will render your urine test invalid. In such cases, the SVT will be inconclusive and you will have to take another urine specimen. Noteworthy, inconclusive tests alert the laboratory that you’re attempting to cheat the test, which might make the process even stiffer for you.
Thus, it’s important to understand that these procedures for beating SVTs are not full-proof. Since they deal with the normalization of the creatinine and temperature level, they may or may not work adequately based on the product you use and how effective it is. So, you have to choose carefully.
Final Thoughts
Adulteration, substitution, and dilution have become ways people attempt to beat clinical tests, and clinics are getting increasingly aware. This is what led to the introduction of Specimen Validity Testing to test for the genuineness of the specimen being submitted for drug tests.
SVTs can be difficult to beat because they specifically target the urine itself to know whether it appears like a normal one or has been tampered with. So, it’s mostly an effective method to detect attempts to cheat a drug test. Yet, this doesn’t mean there aren’t products designed to help you beat it. All you need to do is adequate research and ensure you follow the instructions.