Drugs test

[Unregistered]

Do any of the companies hair test for drugs? Or heard of any instances?
Or is it just solely urine?

Cheers

[size4riggerboots]

Never heard of anyone having their hair tested. But there will be urine tests throughout your career, so give up any naughty substances immediately and permanently and hope you have enough time for it to clear from your system before you go for your ENG1 (which can be several months, depending on what and how much and how often you've done it). We've had the drugs debate countless times on here so lets not go down that road. Taking drugs is a career killer, full stop, end of story.

[Clanky]

Never heard of hair tests, urine tests are common, but I have also heard of blood tests.

[HolyNougat]

they probably would consider it if they suspected you of taking drugs, but for routine tests normally just urine.

[The Kraken]

Hair tests cost more than double urine tests do, so no.

[GuinnessMan]

Hair tests cost more than double urine tests do, so no.

It's not just down to cost, it's down to purpose. A hair test is usually done to establish a time-line of drug use whereas a urine test is just to determine whether you've taken drugs or not. All companies care about is whether you've taken anything, not how long you've been doing it for so they tend to go for the urine tests. The hair tests are generally more accurate and harder to beat that a urine test.

However, very few groups actually use hair testing. Only the likes of the Police, Courts, Coroner's and Social Services CP Teams tend to use them...

[Unregistered]

Thanks!

[The Kraken]

It's not just down to cost, it's down to purpose. A hair test is usually done to establish a time-line of drug use whereas a urine test is just to determine whether you've taken drugs or not. All companies care about is whether you've taken anything, not how long you've been doing it for so they tend to go for the urine tests. The hair tests are generally more accurate and harder to beat that a urine test.

However, very few groups actually use hair testing. Only the likes of the Police, Courts, Coroner's and Social Services CP Teams tend to use them...

Totally agree with you there, it can trace back drug use for a few years if I remember correctly. As Size4 said Merchant navy and drugs = not a good combination.

[GuinnessMan]

Totally agree with you there, it can trace back drug use for a few years if I remember correctly. As Size4 said Merchant navy and drugs = not a good combination.

Depends on how long your hair is. One of the regular tricks in a former life of mine was for the young men we were involved with would shave their heads so that we couldn't test their hair. Didn't work as any hair will actually do, so we'd go for the legs, arms, under arms, pubic, etc. Certain drugs are actually easier to detect in other hair locations anyways, so it was neither here nor there to us.

[The Kraken]

As are crabs...

[Blondie]

As Guinessman says, the MN uses urine tests which usually will show drug use within the last few weeks whereas hair will reveal habits from months ago. I've had a hair test but that was for the cops.

[All At Sea]

It was only a urine test for me, a word of warning though; mine was done in the second week of phase 1, which almost certainly would have revealed any habits I had before starting college. It is very unusual for cadets to be tested that early in training but it can and does happen.

[HarmlessWeasel]

At Warsash there was a whole host of tests done in our first week. It seems like it's completely pot (hehe) luck as to when it's done.

[Unregistered]

What companies do hair testing?