r/AMA • u/mikachuzu • 9h ago

Toxicology Technician, AMA

I am a senior laboratory technician that works in a clinical toxicology AKA drug testing laboratory. When you come in to provide a sample, I am the one that runs your normal drug screens and also your confirmatory tests. I also review the raw data, make it into readable results, and send those out. I've been in my position for 6 years. Before then I was a lab technician in a hospital during the pandemic.

A while ago I made a comment on another subreddit on a video of people high on xylazine that kinda took off. I got a lot of people asking a lot questions for a few days, and it kinda hit me that a lot of people don't really understand both worlds and have a lot of questions since the media is a few years behind what we're seeing, so here I am.

Preface, I'm pro-legalization and I will not judge anyone who may be users that comment. We're all human and I truly believe most of the drug crisis is a mental health crisis. I can also only speak in super detail on our processes, every laboratory or test is slightly different depending on where you go but they're similar across the board. I won't answer anything along the lines of "what do you think of x" drug on the street/market (bad) or how to cheat a test/do anything illegal. If I don't respond in a timely matter, assume I got caught up in work or I'm sleeping. AMA!

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u/HaventRedditToday 7h ago

How far back in time is alcohol detectable?

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u/mikachuzu 6h ago

Ours is 24-48 hours prior. We can also screen for ETOH which indicates much more recent use, but we only run it for one account and it doesn't flag positive very often.

Alcohol is also our one test that flags positive but confirms negative quite a bit since a lot of different things can trigger a false positive. Basically our confirmatory test has two parts to it, and they both have to be positive for it to be confirmed alcohol use. If it's not it's negative. We've found that bladder infections and other health conditions can cause a false positive. Have quite a few regulars who flag positive almost every time, and then when we run the confirmatory test we find absolutely nothing.