Best At-Home Drug Test Kits

Irrespective of the testing scenarios, a failed drug test means trouble. Even the prospect of failing the test is enough to cause stress dreams. Fortunately, the market is flooded with a wide variety of products to help you passdrug tests.If you don't want to smuggle synthetic urine to the lab and are in need of an easy, inexpensive way to know if you’ll pass a drug test, try at-home drug test kits. Many yield rapid results, within 5-10 minutes.

Keep reading to learn more about what at-home drugtest kits are, what they screen for, which are the best at-home drug test kits, factors that influence the result, and more.

What are at-home drug test kits?

These are at-home versions of drug screens commonly performed in a lab setting. A home drug test can screen for traces of any drug in your urine, saliva, orhair. Home drug testingkits usually come with a test cup or cassette with different strips for each drug or metabolite. The test strips contain reagents that react with the metabolites and change color to indicate a positive or negative result. It's almost like litmus strips!

Home drug tests are qualitative and presumptive. That is, they can only determine whether or not a specific drug is present in your system, not how much of it is there. Furthermore, home drug tests will never be as reliable as the ones done in lab settings. However, they are accurate enough to detect recent drug use.

Who uses them, and in what cases?

Whether it is pre- or post-employment, court-ordered, for clinical and family reasons, or simply for ourselves, we will have to take drug tests sooner or later. So why not be forearmed to avoid a positive test?

Besides quick self-tests, the only way to find out if your drug use will show up on a blood or urine drug test is on D-Day. Instant drug testing kits are precise enough to determine if you might be at risk of testing positive forTHC. This will help you detox in time or abstain from weed.

If you're planning to get sober and are using detox drinks or pills,at-home drugtests are your best bet to see if they're actually working.

What substances can be detected?

Some at-home kits only test for a single drug, whereas some brands sell paneltests that detect multipledrugsat once.

The drugs people commonly abuse, and considered ubiquitous in at-home drug panels include:

  • amphetamines
  • cocaine
  • marijuana
  • opiates
  • phencyclidine (PCP)

Other drugs that are frequently tested include:

  • heroin
  • barbiturates
  • benzodiazepines
  • hydrocodone
  • MDMA
  • methadone
  • ecstasy
  • oxycodone
  • morphine
  • nicotine
  • ethanol
  • steroids
  • tricyclic antidepressants.

Top 5 At-Home Drug Test Kits

A quick Google search on “at-home drug tests at Walgreens”or “Dollar Tree drug tests”will yield thousands of hits. But, which are the most reliable test kits on the market today? Here are five to get you started.

  1. Identify Diagnostic

Of all the names on this list, Identify offers the largest number of drug panels in cup and strip forms. For casual smokers who are curious about how much THC can be picked up by workplace drug tests, Identify Diagnostichas a 1-panel THC testerdip. For moderate users who want to cover all their bases, there is a 16-panel test.

Identify claims speedy results with 99% accuracy. You'll get the read in five minutes whether you use a cup, or dip cards. Another advantage of Identify kits is their lab-calibrated sensitivity. This means fewer false negative results, and thus fewer cases of drug abuse are missed.

Identify's tests typically come in packs of 5, 10, or 15. Their large panels are expensive, too. Even if you're a regular smoker who closely monitors THC levels, consider whether it's worth the splurge.

  1. Exploro at Home Marijuana TestKit

An FDA-approved single-panel at-home marijuana test lauded for its accuracy and sensitivity in detecting THC metabolites. With a detection threshold of 50 ng/ml, Exploro at-home THC test strips can detect any form of THC for up to 45 days in just 5 minutes.

They have a 24-month shelf life and come in packs of 15 and 25 test strips. This THC drug test kit is available on Amazon and its official website.

  1. ITG Labs

Partnering with the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Washington, ITG Labs offers no-fuss, accurate drug testing kits. While they do have multi-panel weed testers, the majority of their drug tests only test for ONE SPECIFIC DRUG at a time. If you're sure your substance isn't cut with other illicit drugs, ITG's individual substance strip tests are your best bet.

The main downside is that they don't sell on Amazon. You have to buy straight from their authorized partner. And they're pricey, too.

  1. DrugConfirm home drug test

DRUGCONFIRM™ is one of the trusted names in urine drug test kits. They offer FDA-cleared and CLIA-waived testers for different drugs. Let's look at their 14-panel cup test.

DugConfirm claims 99% accuracy, which holds up well enough when detecting illicit drugs like marijuana and cocaine. It's affordable and lasts 18 months on your shelf. With a single package, you can solve your near-future workplace drug testing needs.

What we like about this product is that you can send preliminary positive samples to their lab for FREE confirmatory testing. You can shop for the test kits at Confirm Bioscience's site, as well as at major retailers such as Walgreens, CVS, and Walmart.

  1. Easy@Home

Easy@Home is known for its pregnancy kits and TENS units. As the brand name suggests, they offer easy at-home drug tests, which you can order off Target or Amazon. Easy@Home claims 99% accuracy for all their cup and strip tests and are FDA-authorized.

To use their 5-panel cup test, you'll need to pee into the cup, dip one of the strips in the urine for ten seconds, and then lay it flat. If you are a light user, in five minutes you'll know if there's marijuana, cocaine, opiates, amphetamines, and benzodiazepines in your system.

If you're using an at-home drug test kit, follow these tips:

  • Check the expiration date of the kit before using it.
  • All weed tester kits include testing instructions. Follow them exactly as described by the manufacturer.
  • Don’t drink too much water, or any liquid, before taking the drug test at home.
  • Thoroughly wash and dry your hands before sample collection.
  • Use the first-morning urine sample for more accurate results.
  • There's a time limit involved in reading a home drug test. If you read the test outside the recommended time window, you could end up with inaccurate results. So have a watch or timer handy while taking the test.
  • Do not leave the test sitting for too long. Properly dispose of testing materials after reading your result.
  • If you have a preliminary positive, send the samples to an accredited lab for confirmatory analysis.

How accurate are at-home tests?

No home drug test is 100% accurate. Be itat-home THC teststrips or a 5-panel Target drug test kit, their main purpose is to give you a quick read.

Unlike lab-based drug tests, home drug tests generally don't have cut-offs and thresholds to rule out false positives and false negatives. Lab-based tests are usually done in two steps. The lab will perform an initial screening to determine if the sample is "clean" of any illegal drugs or drug metabolites. If the result is positive for a drug metabolite, then the lab runs a GC-MS (gas chromatography-mass spectrometry) to identify the chemical makeup of the drug and the quantity.

Several factors influence the reported sensitivity of home drug tests. The result will show up negative if you may have,

  • collected the urine sample too soon or too late
  • tested for the wrong substances
  • handled and stored the sample incorrectly
  • used THC tester kits that have passed their expiration date

Similarly, a drug test may yield positive results even if the person is not abusing drugs. Thefollowing factors can result in a false positive drug test:

  • exposure to marijuana smoke right before a drug test.
  • Over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, diet pills, antidepressants, or sleep aids that are chemically similar to amphetamines.
  • foods or drinks containing poppy seeds; morphine and codeine are naturally present in poppy seeds.
  • CBD oil

Can you cheat on a home drug test?

Whether or not you can successfully cheat a drug test depends on the methods you use. It also depends on the substance and how long you have been using it.

Common methods include:

Adulterants: Adulterants like vinegar, eye drops, liquid soap, and bleach can dilute urine samples and interfere with results. This method is not reliable because sample collectors can ask you to remove coats and jackets or empty your pockets. If tampering is suspected, a lab can order a retest.

Substitution: Swapped "clean" urine or synthetic urine is one of the most common ways used to cheat a drug test. The temperature of the sample is an important variable in drug tests. The temperature outside the range of 90 to 100°F indicates tampering. So faking synthetic urine is not that easy.

Dilution:Drinking gallons of water or other liquids and peeing multiple times before the test may give negative results. There are even detox drinks that can remove all traces of drug use.

The bottom line

At-home drug tests are a quick and fairly accurate way to check THC levels and see where you stand.Get tested by a professional if you want to be sure you'll pass the drug test.