Urine tests are among the most common types of drug testing used by companies in the U.S., even though numerous studies show they don’t improve workplace safety or productivity of the employees.
The transportation industry and companies where workers are required to operate heavy machinery are examples of workplaces where having drug testing programs is of high importance to private employers.
If you don’t know ways to pass a urine drug test, it can be scary, but there are certain products you can use to avoid marijuana detection. Subjects attempt different tricks to get negatives on their urine tests with varying success, so it’s worth knowing this information in advance to be prepared.
Passing a urine drug test in 24 hours – 5 ways
Imagine your boss gave you a notice that you need to pass a urine test for cannabis in 24 hours. Or you’re applying for a job at a company that subjects all employees to drug testing before they can start. Ethical issues aside, this can be a very stressful situation.
If you’re a prospective employee, the good news is you can try some drug testing techniques to remove THC metabolites and other unwanted toxins from your body and pass the dreaded urine test for marijuana, cocaine, or other substances without detection. Here are the steps employees in this situation can try:
Cheat the test using a marijuana detox drink
If you need to reduce the concentration of THC-COOH in your urine on short notice, then a specialized cannabis detox drink could be the ideal solution.
There are many different THC cleansers available for purchase, and some are more effective than others, although they all use dilution to cheat on drug testing. Here are some excellent same-day detox beverages people use to cheat on the tests with success:
Marijuana detox drinks will dilute prescription drugs and THC metabolites for the test since their formula contains diuretics, which will make you urinate more frequently.
This treatment doesn’t permanently rid your body of metabolites, but THC-COOH concentration will be vastly reduced when providing a urine sample for drug testing. Most cannabis detox drinks will require you to increase your fluid intake by drinking lots of water before your test.
Depending on THC levels in your body, you may need more time or potency to cheat on the tests, so you should see if a particular detox drink is suitable for your marijuana consumption. Your body weight is another factor to consider when trying to pass a THC test with these beverages.
Pass using someone else’s or synthetic urine
This approach to drug testing doesn’t require any detoxification process. Instead, it merely requires you to either substitute a fake pee sample or find another person who can provide drug-free urine for you.
The main downside of this method is that it only works if you’re not observed during the collection procedure. However, direct observation of employees is uncommon for workplace drug testing. A supervised test is mostly used for high-risk individuals on probation, athletes, and the military.
Many clean urine kits are available for purchase that come with a waist belt and hand warmer to give fake pee a warm temperature, just like the real thing. This is an essential feature because if the provided test specimen is cold, it will raise suspicion straight away.
It’s also crucial to choose a frequently updated brand to match the variety of detection methods used by drug testing laboratories to weed out fake samples.
These methods may include testing the following:
- Creatinine concentration, which should be between 20 and 400 mg/dL
- Specific gravity, which is generally between 1.002 and 1.030
- pH range of 4.0–10.0
The most popular fake pee kits are:
Avoid detection by adulterating the test
This method to trick the screen is commonly used in emergencies because it involves some risk, as you’d need to put chemicals or an additive into your urine sample after it’s already in the test specimen cup.
Which urine drug tests you can pass this way?
According to some patients, they’ve successfully disguised medications and illicit compounds from labs and passed a test for:
- Cannabis
- Opiate drugs
- Cocaine
- Phencyclidine
- Benzodiazepine
- Ecstasy
- Propoxyphene
- Methadone
What chemicals are used to subvert urine drug testing?
To avoid detection, illicit substance users add chemical adulterants and agents like:
- Bleach
- Salt
- Vinegar
- Visine eye drops
- Laundry detergent
- Isopropanol or alcohol
- Pyridinium Chlorochromate
- Glutaraldehyde
- Nitrites
Even the addition of blood to the sample was also a method that some people have used previously.
Can adulteration cheat a lab test?
When it comes to lab testing, clinics may classify such adulterated specimen as invalid on the initial screen, or it’ll trigger false-negative results, depending on the chemical.
The first scenario can also be useful for cheaters as it allows more time for the body to metabolize evidence before a person is asked to take additional tests.
That said, guidelines from organizations like SAMHSA call for additional GC/MS testing of human urine samples with an adulterated specimen’s characteristics. Therefore, it’s important to remember that large laboratories have learned how to detect some of the common contaminants:
- Pyridinium Chlorochromate (PCC) can be discovered by adding Hydrogen Peroxide, which will turn urine brown
- Nitrites are detectable by adding Potassium Permanganate and Hydrochloric Acid
It’s also worth noting that some chemicals are known to cause false-positive test results for substances that weren’t initially present in your sample. Some over-the-counter medicines can cause false positives for amphetamine or other drugs on an EMIT urine test, but not on GC/MS tests, though.
Read more: common false positives during screenings
Commercial adulterants
Urine Luck is an example of a commercially available product from the same company that produces Quick Fix. It has been around for a long time, and the manufacturer claims that the latest formula doesn’t contain PCC or Glutaraldehyde and is completely undetectable.
Spike additive is a less-known commercial additive, but it’s also made by a reputable company called Clear Choice, specializing in high-end goods.
Klear urine additive is based on nitrites and is now detectable by American laboratories!
Dilute drug test by drinking water
For employees on a budget or those who can’t access the solutions above, flushing their system by drinking a lot of water might be the best way to mask the presence of drugs and marijuana.
You’d need to drink a fair amount of water to ensure drug concentrations in the sample are below cutoff values. Remember, the more you urinate, the better — each time, more substances are being removed. That’s why it’s not a good idea to take a screening first thing in the morning.
Just be careful not to drink too much, as you can flood your system, which can have fatal effects in severe cases. But more likely, this will cause your sample to be discarded as over-diluted.
Another issue to be aware of when drinking excessive water quantity is it can make your urine light, and the lab may consider this to be suspicious. The standard advice for this issue is to take vitamin B2 or B12 as they make urine yellow color.
Just remember that labs are aware of this old trick, and they may check the number of other chemicals like creatinine if they suspect dilution. Modern over-the-counter beverages address these challenges by adding all essential vitamins, minerals, and some substances produced by the human body.
Buy a home urine drug testing kit
Home drug-test kits are ideal for employees who want to determine their current metabolite levels for marijuana or other drugs that urinalysis detects. These instant screening kits will help you decide what course of action to take before the employer mandates a “real” substance abuse test.
If the presence of THC-COOH in your sample is low (i.e., close to detection threshold), then drinking water and marijuana flush beverage should be enough to clean out your system. If the reading is relatively high, then you’d need to choose a detoxification program based on factors like your weight and consumption.
With the second route, it’s a good idea to get multiple at-home drug testing kits to monitor the result regularly. This will help you to know if the cleansing course is working and substance levels are dropping.
If THC-COOH levels are still too high to avoid detection, then you could opt for a synthetic urine kit at the last minute. Just ensure that you have all the products you need in advance. Clear Choice even offers discounted bundles of their merchandise.
How else employees cheat on drug tests?
In the drug abusers community, there are many accounts of DIY options that supposedly can cheat urinalysis tests. Some of them work, while others don’t work for obvious reasons, and sometimes they can even cause harm to your health.
If you have a few weeks to spare, the most sure-fire advice is to exercise, drink large amounts of fluids, eat healthy food, and let your body naturally cleanse from marijuana or other drugs. Particular supplements can reduce this time to several days, which we’ll cover below.
Cleansing your system permanently
Detoxification kits are perfect if you have a bit more time on your hands before your screening. The most popular ones are 10-day and 5-day programs from Toxin Rid, and some others will be longer or shorter.
These kits can provide a permanent cleanse to make sure there are no traces of drugs or other harmful substances left in your system so that you can avoid detection naturally. Make sure to use only reputable brands to avoid compromising your safety and productivity.
Gambling on drug test home remedies
Some patients attempt questionable home remedies like exercising or herbal teas to beat the screenings. While they may have some health and wellness benefits, you should be skeptical of people claiming that these tricks work every time.
Here are some examples home remedies for avoiding detection:
- Vitamin C
- Diuretics (Niacin or Azos)
- Creatine tablets
- Activated charcoal
- Zinc
We’ll cover the most popular ones below:
Baking soda
It’s a relatively easy and cheap home remedy, but beware — this isn’t the most effective way, and it can even be dangerous. This method is based on baking soda altering sample’s pH balance, and depending on the lab testing equipment, result can show up as abnormal and get discarded as invalid.
Lemon juice & cranberry juice
These drinks are thought to help clear chemicals from your system due to their unique properties. Cranberry is a known diuretic and will help you urinate more frequently, while lemon is acidic and helps remove free radicals, although using them alone won’t be enough to flush metabolites.
Apple cider vinegar
Apple cider vinegar cleanse works on the principle that it lowers sample’s pH level. Most people will drink the vinegar with water and do this for several days leading up to the screening, but this remedy isn’t any more effective than previous one.
Aspirin
This one is a little controversial. It involves taking 4 aspirin’s around 4 hours before the test, and this can give you some serious side effects. The aspirin will generally provide an invalid result, so you may need to re-take a screen.
Final thoughts
There are many ways to beat urinalysis screens, and some methods work better than others. Also, time is another aspect to think about, as the more you have, the better chance you will succeed.
A fast metabolism will burn off THC naturally in several weeks, or sometimes months, but for passing urine tests on short notice, over-the-counter products give the best results.
If your job requires you to have frequent drug tests, it may be for health and safety reasons, so you need to be careful about psychoactive ingredients inside your system anyway. However, many companies still discriminate against medical cannabis users.
Future outlook
That’s why organizations like NORML, which has been campaigning since 1970 to have marijuana legalized throughout the world, encourage people to subvert unjustified drug tests.
Always be prepared if you’re a smoker, and to be on the safe side, why not try out some of the methods at home before you are required to take a workplace screening to make sure they work for you.
Sources:
- John Morgan, “Impaired Statistics and the Unimpaired Worker,” The Drug Policy Letter, May/June 1989.
- Identification of Urin-Aid adulterated urine specimens by fluorometric analysis [Letter].
- Robert Freeman, “How to ‘Beat’ a Drug Test,” High Times, Aug. 1988
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0740547206003680
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1360-0443.1995.9079679.x
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12197198/