FAQ
What is the purpose of Australian standards for D&A testing?
Australian Standards are published documents establishing a minimum standard for quality and safety criteria to ensure products, services and systems are safe, reliable and consistently perform the way they are intended to.
Any drug test kit or breathalyser certified to standards confirms the reliability and usability of the product.
What are the Australian Standards relevant to workplace drug and alcohol testing?
Urine Drug Testing AS4308:2008/2023
Saliva Drug Testing AS4760:2019
Breathalyser Testing AS3547:2019
Are Australian Standards Law?
Do I need to use a kit certified to the Australian Standards?
For most industries conducting drug and alcohol testing, the standards are a guide for the product to use and criteria for testing. The mining and aviation industries are regulated with reference to the standards. Organisations should confirm with their legal representative.
Even though the Codes are not necessarily binding, they are usually referred to by inspectors enforcing Workplace Health and Safety standards. If Australian Standards are applied to your business or products, it shows that you have taken measures to ensure your products are of quality, and that they have been thoroughly checked and qualified for commercial usage.
What are the Urine Testing standards and cut off levels?
The current standard for onsite urine test kits is AS4308:2008*.
Drugs tested under AS4308:2008 are:
(μg/ml = micrograms per millilitre)
|
Test Drug |
Cut off |
|
Amphetamine type substance* |
300μg/ml |
|
Cannabis metabolites |
50μg/ml |
|
Cocaine metabolites |
300μg/ml |
|
Opiates |
300μg/ml |
|
Benzodiazepine |
200μg/ml |
It is recommended to use onsite drug testing kits that also include adulterant strips to verify the integrity of the sample:
NIT (Nitrite)
GLUT (Glutaraldehyde)
pH
CREA (Creatinine-CK)
SG (Specific Gravity)
OXI (Oxidants)
* New Urine Standards
AS/NZS 2008:2023 was introduced in 2023. During a three-year transition period, laboratories are updating their procedures and processes to comply with the new standard, which includes obtaining NATA accreditation for confirmatory testing at the updated levels. During this transition, all onsite kits will continue to be manufactured according to AS 4308:2008.
Changes to standards with AS/NZS4308:2023: Reduction of the cocaine cut-off from 300ng/ml to 150ng/ml.
What are the Saliva Testing standards and cut off levels?
The current standard for urine drug testing is AS4760:2019.
Drugs tested under AS4760:2019 are:
|
Test Drug |
Cut off |
|
Amphetamine type substances |
50ng/ml |
|
THC parent drug Δ9 [Delta 9] -tetrahydrocannabinol THC) |
15 ng/ml |
|
Cocaine and Metabolites |
50ng/ml |
|
Opiates |
50ng/ml |
|
Oxycodone |
40ng/ml |
Can urine or saliva drug tests be wrong?
It is possible, an onsite drug test can give a false positive result, (shows the presence of a drug even though the person being tested may not have ingested that drug) hence all onsite drug test results must be termed as Not Negative, until a laboratory confirmatory test is conducted for a confirmed positive or negative result .
Any onsite drug test kit requires confirmation with a more specific test, usually gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS).
Lab confirmatory testing is also required before any disciplinary or court action can be taken.
What is confirmatory lab testing by GC/MS or gas chromatography?
The most sophisticated drug-testing approach is gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC/MS), which is regarded as a "gold standard"; it is used in confirmatory testing.
Typically, GC/MS is preceded by a rapid immunoassay method to eliminate the majority of the "negative" samples.
Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS) are two very powerful and sensitive instruments used to detect and study trace amounts of chemicals as small as one pictogram or 0.000000000001 gram.
The lab will also be able to advise the level of drugs in the sample and specific details of the drug detected.
What is the detection period for urine and saliva drug testing? (indicative only)
|
Drug |
Urine Detection time |
Saliva Detection time |
|
Amphetamines |
2-3 days |
Up to 24 hours |
|
Methamphetamines |
2-3 days |
Up to 24 hours |
|
MDMA (Ecstasy) |
2-3 days. |
Up to 24 hours |
|
Barbiturates |
2-4 days. |
Up to 3 days |
|
Benzodiazepines |
3-7 days- therapeutic use/ 4-6 weeks. |
Up to 2 days (drug dependent) |
|
Cannabis |
1-7 days depending on user. Heavy/Regular user up to 30 days. |
6 hours |
|
Cocaine |
3-4 days |
Up to 15 hours |
|
Morphine/Opiates: |
2-3 days |
Up to 21 hours |
|
Phencyclidine PCP |
4 hours to 14 days |
Up to 24 hours |
|
Propoxyphene |
1 hour to 48 hours |
Up to 24 hours |
|
Fentanyl |
Up to 72 hours |
Not consistently detected |
|
Ketamine |
2 hours to 72 hours |
Less than 24 hours |
|
Buprenorphine |
2 hours to 72 hours |
Less than 24 hours |
What can affect the detection period for drug testing?
Many factors affect the length of time that a test can detect a certain drug in the body.
These factors include:
- Body mass
- hydration levels
- the acidity of urine
- how long ago the person took the drug.
- If a person uses the drug very frequently of heavily, a urine test will detect the drug for a longer period
Should I conduct Urine drug test OR Saliva drug test in the workplace?
Urine drug tests are simple, easily used and provide rapid responses. Kits available for onsite workplace testing can detect the use of up to 15 drugs in one urine test within minutes.
Urine drugs tests can produce results that are greater than 99% accurate while saliva drug tests have an accuracy rate of around 96-98%.
It is important to note however, there are times where the donor can’t or doesn’t provide enough saliva to activate the strips, thus giving an invalid result.
What to use will depend on the contents of the organisation drug and alcohol policy.
If convenience is the most important factor, and the organisation is testing “fit for shift”, saliva drug tests will be the best choice, as they are simple devices, and the test can be conducted without bathroom facilities.
If speed and range are more important and you have a bathroom facilities available, a urine drug test would be a better solution.
What does Negative and Not Negative mean?
A negative result means that the panel drugs weren't detected at the cut-off concentration, or not at all.
A not-negative result means that the panel drugs detected at or above the cut-off concentration, whereby confirmation testing is then required.
An invalid result (no line at the control line marker) means that the test wasn't successful in checking for the presence of the panel drugs. A second, new test kit should be used to verify.
The terms Negative and Not Negative are used in the Australian Standards. In the past the term “Presumptive Positive” and “Non Negative” was used for Not Negative, however this term is no longer used.
Why is the Test line not red or not appearing at all?
For the majority of drug tests available in Australia, a drug test is not negative if there is NO line showing on the test kit at the labelled drug strip. (Please check instruction sheets to confirm)
There must also be a control line showing. Without a control line, the test kit has not worked and thus is not valid, and should be repeated with a new kit.
What does a faint line appearing in a drug test mean?
If a faint line appears in the Test Region of a drug test, this still counts as a NEGATIVE TEST RESULT.
Drug test results do not vary based on the intensity of the coloured lines.
This means that even if the line is very faint, the test has not found any trace of that specific substance
Do masking agents/adulterants work for onsite urine tests?
No. Not if the correct test device and procedure is used.
There is a belief that masking agents such as fake urine or water-diluted samples can produce a negative result.
All commercially available masking agents can be detected by a trained collector when performing an Adulteration Test. These test strips are included in the urine test cup.
The temperature strip can tell if the sample is body temperature, if not it could be an indicator of interference with the sample such as dilution with water.
Adulterant tests validate the integrity of the sample, they will show if masking agents have been used, the sample is diluted, or false agents are added to the sample.
Can anyone conduct a workplace drug test?
To conduct a drug screen in the workplace, the test must be conducted by a person who is certified with HLTPAT005 Collect specimens for drugs of abuse testing.
This has been designed to specifically cater for drugs of abuse testing in the workplace and other settings such as hospitals and health care centres.
What is a Drug screen Chain of Custody?
The chain of custody is the chronological documentation or paper trail, showing the collection, transfer, receipt, analysis, storage, and disposal of the sample. This process is critical to any resulting disciplinary action or court action with the employee.
All onsite drug tests are conducted by a certified tester and completed using a Chain of Custody form. This form is then forwarded to the lab with the specimen to ensure the full chain of custody is maintained.
What accessories and PPE required to conduct an onsite test?
You will need:
- Chain of Custody booklets (Minimum is triplicate copies)
- Underpads to protect the surface, and to maintain a sterile environment.
- Gloves
- BioHazard Waste bags for disposal of used testing products and samples
- Lab Verification kits (urine and saliva depending on your testing programme)
- Breathalyser straws to accompany the breathalyser
- Breathalyser to be fully calibrated.