Why after 30 years did an agency not known for change or flexibility (no offense intended), suddenly turn an entire industry on its head?
Figure 1: Oral fluid provides a shorter window of detection than other testing methods combined with non-invasive collections.
However, these new guidelines are not a direct response to what’s happening with marijuana laws across the country, but they do align well with the controversial trend toward full legalization. So, if these new regulations are not
the federal government’s response to legalization, then why did SAMHSA spend years on this project? Why aſter 30 years did an agency not known for change or flexibility (no offense intended), suddenly turn an entire industry on its head? Tere were actually many good reasons, but three seem to stand out the most: combating adulteration, cuting the time and costs of a typical drug test, and the science of the technology behind lab- based oral fluid testing. Regarding drug test cheating, SAMHSA states:
All unobserved specimen collections are at risk for substitution and adulteration. Studies conducted by the drug testing industry indicate that 0.05 to 3% of urine specimens collected for drug use detection are determined to be substituted or adulterated. Oral fluid collections will occur under observation, which should substantially lessen the risks of specimen substitution and adulteration that has been associated with urine specimen collections, most of which are unobserved.
10 datia focus
On the subject of cuting time and costs, SAMHSA offered the following:
Oral fluid collection can require less time than urine collection, reducing employee time away from the workplace and, therefore, reducing costs to the … employer.
In the OFMG, SAMHSA also
emphasized that oral fluid collections do not require a facility that provides visual privacy during the collection and that the agency anticipates that “many oral fluid collections will occur at or near the workplace, and not at a dedicated collection site, thereby reducing the amount of time away from the workplace.” Employers will have the option to collect
a urine specimen when a donor is unable to provide an oral fluid specimen (and vice versa), which will “reduce both the need to reschedule a collection and the need for the MRO to arrange a medical evaluation of a donor’s inability to provide a specimen.” Perhaps, the greatest time and cost
savings cited by SAMHSA was the reduction in the overall time needed to administer an oral fluid test.
Administrative data for urine collections indicates it takes, on average, about 4 hours from the start of the notification of the drug test to the actual time a donor reports back
2020 • Issue 2
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