Home drug tests are becoming an increasingly
important tool for parents and partners in today's binge drinking and
drug abuse culture among young people. However, many parents
aren't even aware of the existence of accurate home drug test kits,
let alone know how to find them or buy them online.
At Drug-Aware, we have many years' experience in
providing drug and alcohol testing products, and support to businesses
and the health care sector, but we thought it would be a good idea to
develop a home drug tests FAQ page for parents and partners who may
wish to test loved ones at home.
This page contains links to
buy home
drug tests online, but there are also answers to many of the
typically unanswered questions that many parents face. Feel free
to browse the frequently asked questions below or even
visit our blog to
ask a specific question. Alternatively,
contact us to
have your home testing question answered in person.
Who uses home drug tests?
We tend to find that many of the parents purchasing
home drug testing kits from us are actually trying to support and
assist adult children. These are typically young people aged
18-25 who have gone out into the world and have developed a drugs and
/ or alcohol addiction and their parents are attempting some form of
active drug intervention by adding structure and support. This
can also be the case where partners are contacting us about their
spouse or significant other.
In many cases, this can be a stressful and
uncertain time, so being able to get all of the information and advice
you need is essential. It is our position that having a home
drug test regime in place firms up the young person's resolve in
dealing with their drug addiction and allows them to prove that things
are improving.
So as long as open co-operation and good
communication is there, home testing can help to rebuild the trust
that was damaged by the substance abuse. We know first hand of
marriages that have been saved by the use of our home drug test kits
to monitor partners, and cases where having test kits in place
deterred young people from trying illegal substances in the first
place!
As everyone knows, peer pressure is a fact of life
for teenagers and children, and in a society where around half of
16-29 year olds have used an illegal drug in the last year, peer
pressure should not be overlooked. Having home test kits
available to detect drugs or alcohol can make all the difference.
Knowing that a test at home is possible - or even likely - takes the
temptation out of some young people's minds, and it provides a
legitimate get-out for those who are under pressure from their friends
to try drugs in order to fit in.
Having these issues isn't specific to just one
country. We sell our home drug tests worldwide, but most of our
customers come from the UK, USA, Europe, and Australia.
What home drug testing options are
available?
In the last decade, the rise in drug use in society
has been accompanied by an increase in the amount of drug testing that
is carried out. Many
employers now screen their employees for illegal drugs and alcohol as
a way of improving health and safety within the workplace. On-site drug
testing kits are commonplace in many different healthcare settings to monitor
abstinence or to offer prescriptions. These exact same test kits
are available from Drug-Aware for use by parents or
partners for home drug testing their children or family members to
help deter or monitor drug use.
Common types of
Drug Testing:
On-site Urine Drug
Testing at Home
Instant on-site
urine drug tests are a very simple place to start when considering
home testing. With our 7 drug integrated test cup you can get
an accurate drug test result for seven different drugs in as little
as a couple of minutes with zero handling of the sample. This
is not only convenient, but home testing for such a broad range of
drugs removes the temptation for the individual to transfer over to
a different drug of choice.
Buy
your drug testing kits online for delivery as soon as
tomorrow! We despatch over 95% of our orders the same day if
received by 3.30pm GMT.
Our 7 drug
integrated test cups are now a commonplace item in many hospitals, drug
treatment and rehabilitation centres, doctor's surgeries and
businesses so you can be confident of the accuracy of your home drug
test result.
Disclaimer: As with
any on-site test, you must be aware that the results need to be
confirmed by an alternative methodology before the results will
stand up in court. This is particularly important when looking
for
Heroin - which is found amongst a class of drugs called
Opiates. There are legally available over-the-counter
and prescription Opiates as well as Heroin, which may trigger a
positive result.
Using a two stage
process which involves an initial on-site drug test, followed by
GC/MS laboratory confirmation (using chain of custody procedures)
will stand up in court but will also give you the advantage of
speed. Visit our
drug test
kits page for more information on the drug testing kits we
offer or click here to
Buy
your drug testing kits online.
How long can I
detect drugs using a home test kit?
Drugs will start to
be detectable in someone's urine sample within an hour or two of
using them (sometimes less). After this period, different
drugs will remain detectable in urine for different lengths of time,
but this window of detection is usually measured in days.
For example,
Opiates or Cocaine can be detected in urine for typically 2-4 days,
perhaps as long as 5 days at the extreme. Stimulant drugs like
Speed or Ecstasy (Amphetamines and Methamphetamines / MDMA) can take
a little longer - from 2 to 6 days.
Visit our
drug
information page for more specific details and other drug
types.
Laboratory Urine
Drug Testing
Whilst not
recommended for home drug testing (unless you are confirming an
on-site test result), testing via a
laboratory has the advantage that both the screening stage and the
confirmation stages of the test are carried out in one place - so
you get the fully confirmed test result shortly after the screening
result.
Laboratory
drug screening is more expensive than on-site instant drug testing
in the home and you
have the time delay brought about by mailing the urine sample(s) to
the laboratory, plus the time it takes to run the actual tests and
to provide
the report. Many laboratories are automated, so this is typically
24-48 hours for initial screening results and 2 to 5 days for the
full GC/MS
confirmation test results. Visit our
laboratory drug testing page for more details on how we can
help.
Hair Drug Testing
While hair testing
is expensive and time consuming, it has an advantage over home urine
drug tests in that it can detect drug use for a long period of
time - this is typically measured in months, although you can
potentially screen back for as long as the hair has been growing
from the person's scalp. Hair tends to grow at the rate of
about 1cm per
month, so a 3cm section of someone's hair would represent a 3 month history.
You can test larger sections of hair for an overall drug
history, or test monthly sections of hair to gather a detailed
chronological history of drug use.
The process is more
time consuming than urine testing as the hair needs to be processed
before it can be tested. We consequently have to charge a
processing fee, followed by a charge per drug, per section.
Hair testing normally takes around a week to complete, although we
ask customers to allow up to 10 working days if workloads are high.
Contact us for
details.
Oral / Saliva Drug
Tests
We do not usually recommend
Oral or Saliva Drug Testing for home use due to the short
detection window (measured in hours) unless the potential
shortcomings are understood.
Drug testing based
upon oral fluid or saliva has been designed to be as non-invasive as
possible - which is clearly a significant part of its appeal. However,
with this being a relatively new science there aren't yet internationally standardised cut-off levels like
there are for urine
testing. Having a standardised cut-off level for testing
ensures that everyone is tested at the same level and that the level
is indeed correct.
Unfortunately, this
means that various suppliers of
oral / saliva drug test kits are using the levels they have
determined for themselves and this is not uniform across the
industry.
A major issue that
isn't always publicised is that while drug use is detectable in
urine for days and detectable in hair for months, oral testing only
detects drugs for hours. You must have a high concentration of
drug in your body for it to come through into your mouth in
sufficient quantities to be detected. As a result, monitoring
abstinence is more difficult. For example, someone using
Heroin yesterday is likely to test negative today on an oral test,
but would still show positive on a home urine test.
As long as these
factors are understood, please visit our
Saliva Drug Test - Oral Fluid Drug Testing page for more
information.
Cocaine Drug
Detection Wipes / Swabs for Surfaces in the Home
Many people don't
realise that home drug testing
doesn't always have to involve testing an individual - you can
in fact test their environment instead. A good example of this is our
Cocaine Surface Drug Detection Wipes / Swabs.
These simple postcard sized swabs are very useful in the
home, workplace or public
areas to detect the use or handling of cocaine. One of our
customers for these test kits is
The Daily Mail who recently mentioned our surface wipes in one
of their cocaine surface drug testing
articles.
Test results from our simple cocaine ID wipes are immediate. Just wipe
them over any smooth surface which could potentially be contaminated with
traces of cocaine and look to see if the wipe turns blue. You can detect
cocaine from even tiny amounts of drug residue left on any surfaces
that have either been in direct physical contact with cocaine (e.g.
from snorting cocaine off a surface) or from hands which are
contaminated with the drug.
You can detect both Cocaine Hcl (powder) and Cocaine Base (crack or
freebase) - and many companies use them to look for traces of
cocaine in company bathrooms, lockers, desks, vehicles, door
handles, on light switches or any other surfaces that are flat,
smooth and frequently handled.
Contact us for
further information - at a fraction over £1 plus VAT per test they
are a very economical way to protect your business or home from issues
relating to occupier's liability under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.
Please note: These wipes are a
screening test for information purposes only. Any preliminary
positive results must be confirmed by an alternative methodology
before any action is taken.
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So why
choose Drug-Aware for your Home Drug Testing requirements?
At
Drug-Aware, we pride ourselves on providing a comprehensive
solution when it comes to home drug tests.
Take a look
at all of the additional extras we add as standard!
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