Hair Follicle Drug Test FAQ

Drug testing, as you must be aware of already, is a process or a way with the help of which, people can evaluate the use of legal or illegal drugs by a person. In most cases, it is used to detect the presence of performance enhancing drugs, or illicit drugs. This process makes use of specimen such as urine, saliva, blood, sweat, and hair follicles.

FAQ on Hair Drug Test

#1. What is hair drug testing?

Answer: When you take any kind of medicine, it is processed and sent into the bloodstream. From there, a trace amount of the same can make its way into the hair follicles. So that is why, experts take a small sample of hair to detect the use of specific drugs by the subject. Now this test would measure the presence or absence of the specified parent drug or its metabolites in the system.

#2. What is the time period covered by a hair drug test?

Answer: The test has the ability to provide results for an almost 90-day history.

#3. What if the subject is bald?

Answer: Even if the subject has shaved head or is bald, hair samples can be collected from other parts of the body which may include the underarms, arms, and legs. In some cases, facial hair and even pubic hair are considered to be as an acceptable substitute.

#4. How much hair is required?

Answer: On an average, a human hair grows by 0.5 inches every month. For the test, the hair has to between 0.5 - 1.5 inches long. During the test, if the length is 0.5 inches, then 120 strands of hair would be taken for study. And if the length is 1.5 inches or more, then 80 strands are good enough for the purpose.

#5. What drugs can be detected with the help of this test?

Answer: The Federal Government has made it mandatory that five classes of drugs should be included in drug testing. These include:

• Cocaine
• Marijuana
• Methamphetamine
• Phencyclidine (PCP)
• Opiates

And all these drugs and their metabolites in the system, can be detected with the help of hair drug test.

#6. In what way is this test better than urine test for drug testing?

Answer: Urine drug testing cannot be considered an accurate form of this method. This is simply because the test can detect traces of the drugs in the urine, only if the substances are present in the bloodstream. On the other hand, the data of the 90-day history would remain intact in the hair follicle, regardless of the fact if the drug is still there in the blood stream or not.

#7. Is passing the hair drug test an easy affair?

Answer: As said earlier, a hair follicle drug test is known for its accuracy in providing results. To repeat, it can slap the record of a drug use in the previous 90-day period. And for your information, there are certain highly structured tests, which can detect traces of drugs for up to period of even a year. So the only way to pass a drug test, be it a hair follicle, or any other kind, is to stay clean. You may stumble across a myriad of products on the Internet or the market, which claim their usefulness in removing drug traces from the body. But then there is the question of reliability and safety of such products.

As you can infer from the above data, drugs, once consumed, leave their traces in the hair follicles. So a better choice would be to stay drug-free. Doing this would not only keep you safe from the drug test, but also from unpleasant side effects. Take care!