What You Should Know About A Saliva Drug Test

You may be asking yourself, what should you know about a saliva drug test? This is a legitimate question among many people worried about drug tests, but there are some misconceptions about saliva drug tests specifically that have been plaguing people for a long time.

What You Will Need:

• Saliva
• A good lawyer

1. The first thing that needs to be known about saliva drug tests is that they are not used like traditional drug tests for the most part. Saliva drug tests are normally used to not determine if there has been a history of drug use but to determine if there has been recent drug use. The drug toxins that are present in saliva are usually only there for at most 48 hours which may seem like a pointless test when you have tests that detect further back. But on the contrary, saliva tests will be able to tell if there has been drug use in recent time so it is very effective in situations such as criminal investigations that are trying to determine if the suspect was high at the time of the incident.
2. The other useful area is for employers or persons suspecting someone of continuous, recent drug use. If someone is suspected of drug use and are showing the signs of said abuse, the investigative party can use the saliva test to prove their theory correct. This method kills the old adage that “I started recently so there won’t history in my system.”
3. The saliva drug test is started by saturating the sponge collector. You will usually need to leave the saliva test collector in the mouth for a minimum of three minutes so the party will need to consent. If the sponge is not saturated with saliva then the test will not show up correctly.
4. The saturated sponge is then inserted into the saliva drug tester. The test could read many things depending on the complexity of the saliva drug test. Some will just show positive for the drug being tested for and many will tell how much is present in the saliva. This is usually not important knowledge because, once again, the drug is usually out of the system after 48 hours so there is no time before that to flush the body. The logical conclusion is that the drug use was recent.