Who should choose hair testing?
Hair testing is typically performed as the result of a legal proceeding. In divorce cases and child custody cases, hair testing has been used to prove or disprove a person's alleged drug use.
Hair testing has also been used to determine if someone, usually a child, has been in an environment where drugs were present or being used but may not have used the drugs themselves.
Hair testing can offer a significantly long detection window, because of this, it is important to know that a positive result may not necessarily indicate recent use.
How long can drugs be detected with a hair test?
The length of time that a drug can be detected in hair primarily depends on where the sample was taken from, if the sample is segmented, or if the test is checking for environmental exposure and not use.
Depending on the length of the hair, head hair testing can show use up to 90 days in the past. Segmented testing can be used to show drug use history and trends up to a year in the past.
Body hair testing can be used to show use history up to a year in the past.
Environmental exposure testing can only show recent exposure, and only if the donor has not washed their hair since the possible exposure.
How is hair testing performed?
Hair testing is painless, and, in most cases, others won't notice that you performed a hair test.
The collector will use standard hair cutting scissors to take multiple small samples from different parts of the donor's head if the test is a head hair test. A sample that is at least a half an inch in length and approximately the thickness of a standard pencil is needed for testing.
If the test is a body hair test, the collector will provide a sterile razor to the donor and then direct the donor to shave a designated area of the body. A sample roughly the size of a large cotton ball when loosely bunched is needed for testing.
After the sample is collected, it is placed in an envelope, sealed, and shipped to the laboratory for testing.