Which Drug Testing Process is More Effective

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Which Drug Testing Process Is More Effective at Finding Illegal Drugs?

 

Quest Diagnostics has issued their Drug Testing Index of over 3.4 million drug tests for the first six months of 2012. There are interesting results in the analysis that impact how you can find illegal drug users. Why should you care? Well, illegal drug users cost your firm an average of more than $10,000 per year more than non-illegal drug users according to the Society for Human Resource Management. Illegal drug users are three times more likely to use your health insurance program, four times more likely to have an accident and 5 times more likely to file a worker compensation claim.
Pre-employment positives are up for both urine and oral-fluid specimens. Urine specimens show a 16% increase. Oral fluid specimens show a 6% increase.
And another finding is that oral fluid positives for pre-employment are at 5.1% while urine positives are at 3.7%.
Why you ask? Well, oral fluid does not give the donor time to flush their system and there is no virtually no chance of adulteration.
Table 11. Positivity Rates By Testing Reason – Oral-Fluid Drug Tests
(For General U.S. Workforce)
(More than 340 thousand tests from January to June 2012)

Testing Reason	2008	2009	2010	2011	Jan – Jun 2012
Follow-Up	11.2%	9.8%	10.4%	8.3%	12.9%
For Cause	16.8%	17.9%	21.2%	21.8%	21.6%
Post-Accident	3.5%	3.7%	3.9%	4.2%	4.1%
Pre-Employment	4.3%	4.3%	4.4%	4.4%	5.1%
Random	3.3%	3.6%	3.6%	3.3%	3.7%
Returned to Duty	4.4%	5.1%	4.1%	4.0%	5.9%

Table 4. Positivity Rates By Testing Reason – Urine Drug Tests
(For General U.S. Workforce)
(More than 2.5 million tests from January to June 2012)

Testing Reason	2008	2009	2010	2011	Jan – Jun 2012
Follow-Up	7.6%	7.5%	6.5%	6.6%	6.5%
For Cause	22.0%	26.8%	26.9%	26.8%	26.1%
Periodic	1.4%	1.5%	1.3%	1.3%	1.3%
Post-Accident	5.6%	5.3%	5.3%	5.3%	5.4%
Pre-Employment	3.6%	3.4%	3.6%	3.5%	3.7%
Random	5.3%	5.4%	5.3%	5.2%	4.9%
Returned to Duty	5.3%	4.6%	5.2%	5.2%	5.5%

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Cost of drug testing using urine and oral fluid are about the same. These tables illustrate the power of using oral fluid drug testing.