When taking a drug test, what specific drugs are they looking for? Also can caffeine/coffee cause a positive test result?
In: Biology
It depends on what the person or company requesting the test asks the company doing the testing to look for. Most of the time it’s anything that is illegal for recreational use, or just illegal full-stop.
Caffeine will show up in the testing they do, since it does have a presence in your bloodstream, but it shows up as caffeine.
If you’re on any sort of prescription painkillers that are opioid based for whatever reason, that will flag as a positive for opioids in your system (and isn’t really a false positive, but just a positive that you have a prescription for). Similarly, if you have ADHD you may be prescribed amphetamines of some sort or another, which is the same family of chemicals as crystal meth (aka methamphetamine). Again, if you have valid prescriptions for these, that should explain the presence of them in your system.
As another poster mentioned, poppy seeds come from the same flower, and have the same residual chemicals as, opiates, and so will give a false positive. There’s a debate as to how often it happens or what tests will pick ’em up, but really it’s better to just avoid them if you’re getting a drug test.
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