How to Fool a Drug Test?
Posted on Wednesday, August 29th, 2012
Anytime people are desperate for an answer, there will be salesmen willing to take their money in exchange for getting them to believe in a solution. The solution doesn’t need to work, people just need to believe it will work.
So far, here are the general rules of thumb for detecting myths:
- Stimulants, like caffeine, or any products that direct you to drink excessive fluid to dilute your sample may be subject to a retest. Urine must meet a certain level of concentration or gravity for a valid test.
- Anything aimed towards changing the pH of your urine is also easily exposed.
- Certain adulterants can throw off a urine sample, but people monitor for things like eye-drops in a professional screening environment.
- Pyridinium chlorochromate (PCC) works but a simple addition of hydrogen peroxide would expose the use.
Test administrators are well aware of the ways the initial EMIT test can be fooled and test for those adulterants.
Other attempts at achieving a false negative:
Vinegar – If you drink vinegar, or add it to your urine sample, it might lower the pH of your sample. If it does, it would be an obvious example of tampering which will make the test administrator request another sample. The next time will probably be under the watchful eye of a witness. Additionally, drinking enough vinegar to have any effect as a masking agent can cause diarrhea.
B Vitamins – They might color your sample yellow, but it won’t mask any drugs or help get them out of your system faster. Coloring your urine isn’t all that important because it’s normal for people to have clear urine even when they don’t consume much fluid.
Via Wikipedia:
Niacin, also known as Vitamin B3, is speciously claimed by some to “burn it out” of one’s system when taken at high doses (250–500 mg per day). While some Internet (and other) sources often claim that it works wonders, there is no scientific evidence that it has any effect. Very high doses can also cause adverse side effects.
Caffeine/Dexatrim – Taking phenylpropanolamine (Dexatrim’s active ingredient) or other stimulants does not work. Dexatrim can cause a false positive. The myth may have originated because Dexatrim was claimed to speed metabolism. If you want to speed up your metabolism, start a regular fitness routine.
False Positives
The opposite side of the spectrum is testing positive when you shouldn’t. Luckily, the EMIT (normally the first test) isn’t the final decider. If someone tests positive for drugs, the specimen goes through a second test that verifies with 99.9999% accuracy.
