A drug test using hair is required of every applicant.

We are serious about hiring people who are drug-free. So we have teamed with Psychemedics, the company that has identified more drug users for more companies than any other hair testing laboratory in the world.  Why?

With a drug test using urine, there is safety in numbers. The detection rate is low, and the drugs can only be detected for a few days after use. You might literally get lost in the crowd of people tested. Not with Psychemedics. A Psychemedics drug test detects drugs used months ago rather than a few days back, and their technology misses virtually nothing.

When you take drugs, they are metabolized by the organs in your body and then excreted, usually in urine and usually within just a few days. That is why a drug test using urine is easy to cheat. By the time a test is administered—especially if a user prepares for it—most of the drugs have been processed by the body and eliminated as the body flushes itself out. Urine is ineffective at detecting usage except in the very recent past.

A Psychemedics hair test is different.

As drugs are processed by the body small amounts pass from the blood into a hair follicle. As the hair grows from the follicle those trace amounts are carried inside the hair shaft where the Psychemedics science can detect the. Rather than being excreted, that evidence of drug use is part of the body. Since it is being carried by the hair as it grows, it establishes a chronological record of drug use. It takes about 30 days for hair to grow one-half inch. A sample of hair just 1.5 inches long and as big around as a pencil lead gives us a 90-day picture of drug usage. And reveals two important things a habitual drug user would rather we not know.

• Which drugs were ingested in which amounts
• How often they were ingested over a period of time

Those two things let us screen out applicants that bring the highest risk—-habitual drug users.