Drug Test Cheating

Efforts to subvert drug tests, often referred to as drug test cheating, continue to be a problem for providers.

In Current Consulting Group’s 2024 Drug Testing Industry Survey, when asked, “Do you believe some people are cheating on their drug tests?” 82.4% of drug testing providers said yes, people try to cheat to pass a drug test, while only about 8% said there’s no cheating going on. Another 10% were not sure.

“The sad truth is drug-test cheating has become a booming industry,” said Brian Drake, Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Wondfo USA. “A quick search of the internet will yield thousands of websites and blogs featuring advice on how to subvert a urine drug test as well as products such as fake urine to help people with drugs in their system pass a drug test.”

“At the same time, it is virtually impossible to find valid products or useful advice on how to subvert an oral fluid test,” Drake continued. “If an employer is concerned about the costs that drug-test cheating adds to his or her drug testing budget, oral fluid testing is a valid alternative because common cheating methods simply do not work with oral fluid testing.”

Survey participants were asked what the most common cheating methods are:

Using synthetic or fake urine: 37.7%
Using someone’s or something else’s urine: 28.1%
Drinking a lot of water to dilute a urine sample: 16.2%
Abstaining from drug use long enough to pass the test: 10.8%
Adding something to a urine sample: 3.1%

According to the 2024 Quest Diagnostics Drug Testing Index (DTI), “The percentage of employees in the general U.S. workforce whose drug test showed signs of tampering increased by more than six-fold in 2023 versus the prior year, the highest rate ever in more than 30 years of annual reporting.”[i]

Quoting from the official DTI press release: “The increase in substituted urine specimens in the general U.S. workforce, a population of over 5.5 million, was 633% (0.015% in 2022 versus 0.11% in 2023). Invalid urine specimens in the general U.S. workforce increased 45.2% (0.31% in 2022 versus 0.45% in 2023). A result of substituted or invalid suggests a specimen has been tampered with in an attempt to conceal drug use.”

Suhash Harwani, Ph.D., Senior Director of Science for Workforce Health Solutions at Quest Diagnostics, offered this analysis: “The increased rate of both substituted and invalid specimens indicates that some American workers are going to great lengths to attempt to subvert the drug testing process. Given the growing acceptance and use of some drugs, particularly marijuana, it may be unsurprising that some people feel it necessary to try and cheat a drug test. It is possible that our society’s normalization of drug use is fostering environments in which some employees feel it is acceptable to use such drugs without truly understanding the impact they have on workplace safety.”

Chuck Marting of Colorado Mobile Drug Testing and a member of the NDASA Board of Directors was quoted in a 2023 issue of Current Consulting Group’s newsletter: “It’s not uncommon between our two offices to have 5-10 per day with synthetic urine. I’ve done a lot of teaching and training on it. Collectors need to ask questions of donors to learn if they have synthetic urine on them without creating a confrontation. We’re hyper aware of the situation here and have been very successful in thwarting such efforts.”

For drug testing providers and employers who may be tempted to discount the magnitude of the problem, consider this somewhat humorous but disturbing encounter Marting had with a drug-test cheater: “I recently had a guy get caught trying to pass a drug test with synthetic urine. I very calmly explained that there was something wrong with his urine sample, that it appeared to be synthetic. The guy then gave me a high five and said, ‘Congratulations.’ When I asked him why, he said it was the first time he had gotten caught in 10 years of drug-test cheating.”

To learn more about Chuck Marting and his services, visit: https://coloradomobiledrugtesting.com

There are 16 states that have enacted laws that prohibit drug-test cheating or require laboratories to identify evidence of invalid specimens. Subscribe to Current Compliance (CurrentCompliance.org), Current Consulting Group’s comprehensive, regularly updated database of state laws that impact workplace drug testing, to learn more.

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[i] Workforce Drug Test Cheating Surged in 2023, Finds Quest Diagnostics Drug Testing Index Analysis of Nearly 10 Million Drug Tests. Quest Diagnostics. May 2024. https://newsroom.questdiagnostics.com/2024-05-15-Workforce-Drug-Test-Cheating-Surged-in-2023,-Finds-Quest-Diagnostics-Drug-Testing-Index-Analysis-of-Nearly-10-Million-Drug-Tests