Urine Tests Easy to Cheat On.

• Position: DRUG TESTING

With the U.S. facing an opioid epidemic, the most-effective diagnostic tool for uncovering misuse and abuse of opiates remains the urine drug testing that numerous businesses and physicians rely on--but what happens when that "effective" tool is easily cheated and an entire industry springs up to help the cheaters?

"Many people may not realize it, but there's a quiet war going on out there aimed at defeating this important test," says Matt McCarty, CEO of Genotox Laboratories, Austin, Texas.

A Google search of "how to cheat a drug test" yields more than 1,500,000 results. Blogs give detailed instructions on the use and purchase of devices, adulterants, and synthetic urine that allow drug users to slip through the tests unscathed. "The sole purpose of these products is to fraudulently produce a clean urine test result, and hide the user's drug misuse, abuse, or addiction."

The cheapest and most-foolproof way to cheat is to use substitute urine provided by another person, but cheaters also can turn to fake urine, which, when warmed, almost is indistinguishable from the real thing.

Apparently, the cheaters are experiencing success. Research presented at the American Pain Management Conference reported that traditional validity measures failed to detect substitute or synthetic urine in 98% of samples...