Mouth Swab Drug Test

You have more to worry about than just urine and hair drug testing techniques, there is now the mouth swab drug test.

If you haven’t heard about this drug testing technique, there is no fret.  There are many ways to still pass your test, with highly dependable results.

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Mouth swab drug tests have recently become one of the most commonly administered of all the drug tests. Employers often use it to pre-screen prospective employees. Parents may also use these tests for children they suspect of using drugs or who have a history of drug use.

Such tests use saliva to determine whether or not an individual has consumed drugs within a specific time frame. That time frame will differ based on the particular drug taken.

Mouth Swab Drug Test Protocol

When a person is administered a test in this way, he or she will be required to swab the inside of his or her mouth. The swab or brush is placed in an individual’s mouth for several minutes and then immediately in a drug testing kit. The test will show either negative or positive for drug use.

A mouth swab drug test is fast-acting. The kit can detect drug or alcohol use in roughly 10 to 30 minutes. The mouth swab drug test can detect a variety of drugs, amongst them opiates, cocaine, cannabinoids, alcohol, phencycline, amphetamines, barbiturates, pcp, ecstasy and benzodiazepines. If a person has tested positive for an illicit substance, a colored control line will appear. Each drug the test can detect has a different color. If more than one drug is detected, multiple lines will appear.

A mouth swab drug test won’t detect every instance of alcohol or drug use. It is only able to do so for a limited time range. For instance, it obviously won’t pick up that glass of wine an individual consumed three months ago. However, it may be able to if it was consumed four hours prior to taking the test. Again, there is a certain time frame in which a swab test can detect the use of drugs and it will differ based on the particular substance being tested for.

 

There are many reasons for the popularity of mouth swab drug tests. It is inexpensive to administer. The only thing required is swabs and the test kit. It yields rapid results and is largely reliable.

Employers looking to screen employees can do so much less expensively using this kind of test then they could if using a hair, urine or blood test. For parents, much of the allure is the same. Instead of paying for urine, blood or hair tests, which could become prohibitive financially, they can get satisfactory results without spending a great deal of money or having to wait very long for results. The portable nature of the kit, also make them quite popular.

How to Beat a Mouth Swab Drug Test

Though the swab test is generally considered reliable, it is not fool-proof. There are numerous ways to “beat” the test. Those who know that they have to take the test in advance may resort to actions, home-remedies or products designed specifically, to trick the test and evade detection. The test may also yield false positives. An individual that hasn’t consumed an illegal substance or alcohol may test positive for an illicit substance. This could be problematic because it could bar them from getting a job, especially if they failed to inform the tester that they have consumed a substance which may have caused the test to incorrectly read as positive for alcohol or drug use.