When taking a drug test, what specific drugs are they looking for? Also can caffeine/coffee cause a positive test result?
In: Biology
Caffeine is so astoundingly common in the American diet, at least, what with soda, tea, coffee, chocolate, energy drinks, and pain meds. It’s a large and distinctive molecule. If a cup of coffee would throw off a drug test, it would render drug tests useless.
Typically a urine tests are screening for common drugs: opioids, amphetamines, MDMA, THC, party drugs… All the typical common stuff. Basically, if you’re using drugs or abusing pain killers, they’re going to find it. I believe they don’t test for psychedelics – LSD, psilocybin, but of course I can’t tell you what they specifically will or won’t test for. It could be regionally dependent, so if there was a particular drug problem in your area, they might include a test for that, whereas it may be absent in other parts of the country.
False positives are rare, though some foods do cause that to happen. If I were a parole officer or an employer, I would not be interested in excuses.
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