Contrary to popular belief, drug testing labs are not always perfect.
Every now and again we receive phone calls from military members who simply
have no idea how their urinalysis sample tested positive for drugs.
One of the problems with the drug labs is that their mistakes do not get
caught unless they make a mistake on a control sample. Military members
rarely have their samples retested by an independent lab.
There are a few ways that drug labs can make mistakes in the testing process.
The labs can:
-Mishandle samples during the collection process;
-There can be rack jams during automated preliminary screening;
-Samples can be diluted by the drug lab with "certified" clean
urine that can result in potential errors in the dilution process and
the mathematics of calculating the results;
-Contaminated tubes and equipment are possible at the lab; and,
-Paperwork can be incorrectly processed at the drug lab.
Those are all real-world examples.
The military services have policies for obtaining independent testing.
One strategy - if you are confident that you did not have drugs in your
system - is to have the sample independently tested. The testing has to
be done by an approved. We have experience in having samples independently
tested. Contact us if you need more info on independent testing.
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Categories:
- Administrative- Separation
- Drug Cases