8 June 2011 – In safety-sensitive industries such as construction, mining and transport, drug and alcohol screening is essential, but the decision between urine and oral fluid testing can be a difficult one and there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
Currently the most popular method of workplace drug testing is urine testing, which also gives the most accurate results. Of Australian organisations that test employees for drug use, 80 percent use urine testing. Steve Korkoneas, national operations and technical manager for Medvet Laboratories, explains: “Urine is more cost-effective than oral fluid tests and can trace drugs that have been ingested more than 24 hours prior to testing.”
Oral fluid testing, on the other hand, will still detect cannabis, cocaine, opiates and amphetamines, but has a significantly lower chance of detecting benzodiazepine, a common active ingredient in sleeping tablets. Oral swabs are also more expensive and have a shorter window of drug detection, but are less intrusive from a privacy perspective.
According to Korkoneas, an organisation’s choice of drug testing methodology should take into account these considerations, as well as whether the testing is pre-employment, random or post-incident, and other specific needs.
More information
Medvet www.medvet.com.au