Chris Bell
CANSFORD LABS
Fascinating facts about drug testing and how it works
on May 15, 2019
When it comes to a ‘hair strand drug test’ there are some key aspects you may find interesting to know and consider:
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A hair strand drug test can actually give you a ‘drug use history’ over the length of time of the hair
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The hair grows about 1cm a month, so each section of hair tested can tell its own story
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You can even do a hair drug test on people who have been dead for years. We once tested a mummified Egyptian corpse (from about 2500BC) and found traces of cocaine.
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Interestingly, coca plants are not grown in Egypt so we can hypothesise trans-continental travel was much earlier than most think!
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Hair strand drug testing can only be done in a laboratory as the hair is ‘liquefied’ in order to discover the drugs it contains.
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Even when people don’t have hair on their heads, other body hair can be tested
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MI5 and MI6 reportedly have a habit of shaving a candidates left arm pit as part of their induction process
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Between 3% and 5% of people working in the UK today would fail a drug test if it was taken today.
Chris Bell
Chris Bell is Cansford's Head of Collections, with many years of experience in drug and alcohol testing.