Hair Follicle Drug Testing Advantages
New Era’s hair follicle drug testing has several advantages over other drug testing methods. First, because almost all traces of a drug is naturally flushed from the body within 5-7 days following the use of an illicit substance, blood, salvia, and urine tests may be ineffective or inconclusive after only one week. Hair follicle testing, on the other hand, can detect drugs and drug metabolites that have been incorporated into the hair matrix from the bloodstream, increasing the testing window to 90 days, in some cases. Furthermore, because a hair follicle’s composition cannot be altered with bleach, shampoos, dyes, or other “stripping” chemicals, this testing method is resistant to contamination. Finally, hair samples are taken in full view of a DOT- or SAMSHA-certified collector, which makes cheating (i.e. switching the hair sample with a “clean” sample) practically impossible.