Hair

Hair follicle drug testing or hair drug testing is an alternative to the standard urine drug testing. A hair follicle drug test is popular among employers, substance abuse professionals and courts as it offers a longer detection window than urine drug test. Typically a hair drug test provides up to 90 days of drug use history. This is one of the reasons why hair drug tests lead to a greater number of positives and are used by employers adopting a zero-tolerance drug testing policy.

It’s important to note that hair is not plucked from the scalp so technically it’s not hair follicle drug testing but simply a hair drug test. Hair follicle drug testing can be used by employers as part of their pre-employment or random drug testing process or by individuals for monitoring drug-use during rehabilitation. A 5-panel hair drug test is most common but it also comes in 10-panel and 12-panel variants to cover more drugs.