Urine Drug Testing

About Urine Drug Testing

Urine drug testing has become the standard for on-site testing of drugs in Canada. This is for number reasons, but primarily because of the low cost of testing. On-site tests are relatively inexpensive and are easy use with very little training required.

The traditional type of urine drug testing is the dip test. The urine sample is collected in a specimen cup and then the urine dip drug test is placed in the cup for 3 to 5 seconds then withdrawn from the cup and laid flat for five minutes or until the results appear. This method of collecting and testing urine has become standard practice within the industry as it is a reliable and an easy method to obtain test results.

However, there are downfalls this collection method. Firstly, the specimen must be collected in a cup and then brought to the area where the testing is to be completed. In a normal test environment the person testing the subject would seal and transport this sample. However, there may be a circumstance where the person being tested may be required to transport the sample. This could result in the urine sample being spilled contaminating both the person being tested the test area. It also gives that person an opportunity to adulterate the sample and to cheat the test.

New Drug Testing Product

A newer type of urine test is the drug cup. The urine drug cup combines both the specimen collection cup and the drug test strips into one unit. The benefit of this is once the sample is collected and the specimen cup is sealed, there is no need to open the cup for any reason. To view the results simply peel back the privacy label on the front of the urine drug testing cup without risk of contamination.

Once the privacy label has been removed and the results recorded the urine drug testing cup can be discarded in regular trash or sent to the lab for confirmation. Most labs are familiar with the drug cup and will accept that as the specimen container for confirmation tests. In fact, some labs use a urine drug testing cup for the initial confirmation test. If a presumptive positive is found then the sample is confirmed using LC/MS (liquid chromatography / gas spectrometry).

When considering the additional cost for a drug cup versus the dip test, the cost difference is offset by the savings of not having to provide a specimen cup to collect the sample in.

Much like the dip tests, the drug cup can be configured with a variety of testing strips. The urine drug testing cups that we offer can be configured with up to 14 different tests including 16 drugs and 4 adulterants. This allows you to customize the tests for your specifications.