Independent Testing of Drug Samples in the Military

Contrary to popular belief, drug testing labs are not always perfect. Every now and again we receive phone calls from military members who simply have no idea how their urinalysis sample tested positive for drugs. One of the problems with the drug labs is that their mistakes do not get caught unless they make a mistake on a control sample. Military members rarely have their samples retested by an independent lab. There are a few ways that drug labs can make mistakes in the testing process. The labs can: -Mishandle samples during the collection process; -There can be rack jams during automated preliminary screening; -Samples can be diluted by the drug lab with “certified” clean urine that can result in potential errors in the dilution process and the mathematics of calculating the results; -Contaminated tubes and equipment are possible at the lab; and, -Paperwork can be incorrectly processed at the drug lab. Those are all real-world examples. The military services have policies for obtaining independent testing. One strategy – if you are confident that you did not have drugs in your system – is to have the sample independently tested. The testing has to be done by an approved. We have experience in having samples independently tested. Contact us if you need more info on independent testing.