i am finding that drug court officers abiding by SAMSHA best practices protocol set up decades ago, have not been educated in interpreting results (they arent medical students) They look for the positive but dont know what other information on the lab report means.
i have reviewed two reports which i believe i could be great questions on a test . 1) the first one is positive for alcohol and pot, everything looks normal, the client swears they are clean. The interpreter missed the significance of the abnormal ph level of 10 in the urine, I understand that to be an indication that the sample has been contaminated. Am i right?
(no one can pee a 10, you are screaming at 7.5 to 8 because it is burning.
2) the second scenario involves a client who swears she is clean but got a positive for alcohol. the sample was taken dec 22 before christmas, was flown to San Diego, where it sat for 6 days until it was processed. the woman has candida for a decade. the candida feasted off of the sugars in the urine, metabolizing it to alcohol for 6 days.
she faces jail time for this misintepretation of the results. This is an expired specimen in my opinion regardless of refrigeration. Am i right?
I am interested in protecting clients in recovery who have signed away their basic civil right to question the results of a urine analysis, especially when a false interpretations has incarceration consequences. i want is to help make this the best drug court ever. The staff and judge are incredible people. Really wanting to make a difference in lives. My calculations show 95% accuracy.
Urine sample which alcohol or pot, do not automatically mean a person has been using. There are other explanations. if you help me help them i will appreciate it.
you are 100% percent regarding a urine PH that is out of range. It can absolutely mean the sample was adulterated. The second question regarding urine sitting and fermenting for six days, I don't think that sample would pass quality control sitting for that long but I don't know. Many things can cause false positives in drug urine screens so if a test is positive it may be sent out for further testing and is usually reviewed by a medical review officer to see if there is another reason that the test is positive.
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