What kind of hair test does probation in sc use fpr a hair te

What kind of hair test does probation in sc use fpr a hair test?

Hair analysis is performed by mirroring the federal forensic Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) employment drug testing guidelines as closely as possible for a solid sample. Urine, of course, comes to labs in liquid form. Hair must go through additional extraction procedures in order to release the drugs from the hair before testing. From that point on, the tests are performed almost identically to urine drug testing.

1. The sample is received in the secured Toxicology Accessioning department to be verified for complete chain of custody, adequate sample volume and computer data entry. The sample is cut and weighed. Once cut into very small pieces, the sample is mixed to create as homogeneous a sample as possible. An internal chain of custody is created and a portion of the cuttings of each sample is sent to the laboratory for screening.

2. The samples are prepared and the drugs are extracted into a liquid form. As with urine, the screening process is performed by immunoassay techniques. Those samples that test negative are then reported as negative. If the screening process produces a suspected positive, a request is made from the laboratory to the accessioning department to provide a new sample from the remainder of the original cuttings.

3. The second portion of the original cuttings is then subjected to confirmation testing by either gas chromatography / mass spectrometry (GC/MS) or gas chromatography / mass spectrometry / mass spectrometry (GC/MS/MS). If the confirmation test is negative or less than the cutoff, the sample is reported as negative. If the sample is positive the laboratory reports the sample as positive.

Source: http://www.ushealtht...&a.htm