All Hair Testing Is Not The Same
ADVANTAGES OVER OTHER HAIR TESTING
Our patented process is a far superior method for getting ingested drugs out of the inside of the hair. In addition to being the only lab to have FDA clearance for both head and body hair, Psychemedics offers:
INCREASED ACCURACY AND IDENTIFICATION OF USERS
Our lab is able to use highly effective proprietary methods for getting the drug out of the inside of the hair. While other hair testing labs may leach drugs from the hair, leaving behind or destroying some of the drug in that process, Psychemedics uses its proprietary digestion methods to remove virtually 100% of the drugs from the hair, thereby increasing detection capabilities. Use of inferior non-Psychemedics methods can result in false negatives.
SIGNIFICANTLY SMALLER SAMPLE OF HAIR REQUIRED
Other labs may require 2-3 times as much hair for their methods. A smaller sample means fewer cancelled tests due to insufficient hair quantity. This also means that even donors with sparse head hair or body hair can be tested.
FDA CLEARANCE NOT LIMITED TO HEAD HAIR
Psychemedics increases the effectiveness of drug testing programs be ensuring that those without head hair are also properly tested. This population makes up approximately 15% of those who apply or are employed today.
ELIMINATES EXTERNAL CONTAMINATION
Psychemedics developed and utilizes the most extensive wash procedure in the industry to remove and/or account for any external contamination (a 3 hour and 45 minute multi-step wash procedure that also includes testing of the last wash with application of wash criteria). Other labs that use less effective washes or do not analyze the wash at all, put clients at risk for making employment decisions based on a false positive result. Numerous studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of the Psychemedics wash procedure and the ineffectiveness of others.
RESISTANCE TO EVASION
Psychemedics’ test cannot easily be beaten with cleansers, bleach and dyes, like some other hair tests. While some of these substances will dramatically affect some other labs results, Psychemedics has published data demonstrating that normal use of common hair products or adulterants are not effective on our test to create false negative results.
UNMATCHED LEGAL TRACK RECORD
Psychemedics’ hair test has been upheld in more state and federal courts than any other testing lab. In addition to state and federal courts, Psychemedics’ technology has been deemed accurate and reliable in arbitrations, unemployment hearings and other legal actions.Psychemedics has over 25 years of experience in defending workplace testing and our results are routinely upheld when challenged. Our legal track record with hair analysis far surpasses any other laboratory. Other labs have tried to point to Psychemedics’ successful legal cases to support their testing methodology. For a list of Psychemedics legal cases, please visit www.psychemedics.com/legalcases
INDUSTRY LEADING DETECTION OF MARIJUANA
Marijuana remains the most abused drug in the United States. A recent SAMHSA report shows that 76% of drug users self report they use marijuana. Without the proper test methods and technology, marijuana poses some unique challenges and is difficult to test in hair. Psychemedics spent many years of research not only in developing our ability to extract drugs from the hair, but also in solving the extraction, sample preparation and detection issues related to marijuana analysis. Subsequently, Psychemedics’ patented methods by which marijuana can reliably be extracted and detected are the best in the industry.
One of the major advantages of using a hair test is that because of the longer window of detection, drug users should be detected at a much higher rate than urinalysis. Paired data (hair and urine samples collected from the same donor on the same day) released by other hair testing labs showed that the positive rate for marijuana in their urine and hair tests are identical. Even with the much longer detection window of hair analysis, their hair test only detected the same percentage of marijuana users. While other labs hair tests may find no additional marijuana users than urinalysis tests (and often find less), Psychemedics’ hair test typically detects 4 to 7 more times the number of marijuana users than urinalysis. Overall, Psychemedics detects 5 to 10 times the number of drug users for all drug categories tested, when compared to urinalysis in paired data. With a Psychemedics hair test you can be confident in not only superior detection of marijuana, but superior detection of drug abuse across all drug categories.
