Summary

This testimony discusses the ease with which the public can obtain products that are marketed, designed, and sold to defraud urine drug use screening tests such as those administered in the Federal Workplace Drug Testing Program. For purposes of this testimony, these products will be referred to as masking products and ways in which some businesses peddle them on the Internet will be discussed. Masking products fall into one of four categories: (1) dilution substances that are added to a urine specimen at the time it is collected or are ingested before an individual submits a urine specimen; (2) cleansing substances that detoxify or cleanse the urine and are ingested prior to the time that an individual submits a urine specimen; (3) adulterants that are used to destroy or alter the chemical make-up of drugs and are added to a urine specimen at the time that it is provided for testing; and (4) synthetic or drug-free urine that is substituted in place of an individual's specimen and provided for testing. This testimony today summarizes our findings.

In summary, we found that products to defraud drug tests are easily obtained. They are brazenly marketed on Web sites by vendors who boast of periodically reformulating their products so that they will not be detected in the drug test process. In addition to an array of products designed to dilute, cleanse, or substitute urine specimens submitted to testers by drug users, approximately 400 different products are available to adulterate urine samples. The sheer number of these products, and the ease with which they are marketed and distributed through the Internet, present formidable obstacles to the integrity of the drug testing process.