How Addicts Try to Pass Drug Tests

October 26th, 2010 | Add a Comment

Drug addicts are an inherently artful breed. We look for ways to cheat the system, undergo the radar, and avoid confrontation surrounding our use as opposed to abiding by the standards put in place, whether it is in our homes, our treatment programs, our occupations, or any other institutions that hold us accountable. Many of us have come into recovery, whether by our own or somebody else’s volition, ambivalent as to whether or not we’d like to stay sober. For the latter, who have perhaps not suffered enough chaos from their disease, the drug screen has become their greatest bane. Now, though, in our progressive, ever-advancing world, the drug test has been reduced from the absolute ruler and subjugator to a conquerable, yet still very formidable foe. As most of us know, the will of a drug addict is not easy to suppress, especially when his or her intention is to still get high. Drug tests are handy and fail-safe indeed, but in the end, they’re merely an obstacle that can be overcome with some careful strategy by the addict.

Drug addicts have been the primary beneficiaries of chemical advancements and modifications. Whether the addicts themselves are responsible for the creation of these state-of-the-art synthetic mind-bending drugs, one cannot say, but those of us who are not finished with the distress of active addiction owe a debt of gratitude to these innovators who have enabled the addict to still get high in some capacity. Now that these “designer drugs” have hit the market, it is becoming more and more commonplace for addicts to resort to these as alternatives to their drugs of choice because they will escape notice. Drug testing is a war of minds, being fought in back and forth strokes. The addict and their advocates (consisting of witting or unwitting chemists) forge an attack on the drug-opposed community with a new chemical, and they fire right back with a new way to screen for it.

Synthetic designer drugs are produced one of two ways, either by an anticipated chemical reaction or an unanticipated chemical reaction. Whether they could be called breakthroughs is debatable, but many of them have caused the drug addict to rejoice and the adversaries to deplore their psychoactive properties. For a long time, ecstasy, which was created in the 1980’s, could not be detected by a drug test, and it was the great white light for those being tested but still antagonistic to sobriety. Naturally, drug-testing methodologies adapted in order to cope with this threat, and thus they created a test for it. However, the pro-drug community has remained undaunted. Now, they’ve developed a new plan for sidestepping tests: altering chemical structures, thereby creating offshoots of the predominant parent drugs.

Designer drugs can alter a familiar chemical by even one molecule, and it can engender a whole new drug with different effects on the mind and body. That’s not all, with the molecular structures modified, they can evade detection by standard drug tests. The most common of these new designer drugs is JWH-018, the active compound in the drug “Spice” (don’t be fooled by the labels that designate it as incense; it is a drug for consumption). JWH-018 was synthesized from its parent, THC (the primary psychotropic ingredient in Marijuana). It was first developed in 1998 and marketed almost immediately in head shops in the form of incense product (with that entirely fruitless label “not for human consumption”). It operates on the brain by binding to cannabinoid receptors, similarly but not quite as potently as THC. The effect, therefore, is similar to, but not as potent as, that of Marijuana.

Spice posed a major threat to the integrity of workplaces, rehabs, sober livings, and outpatient programs for almost 15 years with members passing drug tests but still getting high on JWH-018 the side. But, as is almost invariably the case, the anti-drug community oriented themselves to this new menace and finally developed a screen for it. Spice will still skirt around five and ten-panels, but there is a special synthetic cannabinoid test that can be used to detect JWH-018.

There are, however, still many obtainable designer drugs on the block that cannot be caught by a drug test. One of the most abused of such is Mitragyna Speciosa (Kratom). Kratom is a leaf that is indigenous to Southeast Asia that is often extracted into powder or resinous forms. Kratom contains several psychoactive alkaloids, most of which work on the opioid receptors. Due to its class distinction from opiates that are synthesized from the poppy (i.e. traditional opioid agonists like heroin or morphine), kratom occupies its own variety known as “mu-opioid receptor agonists.” The effects of kratom have been subjectively described as being alike to codeine or hydrocodone. Kratom, which is often used medicinally to ease opiate withdrawal, ironically, works so similarly on the brain as opiates, that the substance itself has its own withdrawal symptoms. Like Spice, kratom is marketed as incense that is “not for human consumption.” Currently, there is no way to effectively test for kratom use, and it is currently being assessed to determine whether or not it should be considered “dangerous.”

Still the list of designer drugs expands. They begin as experimental chemicals and then get marketed for any purpose other than human consumption. Spice and kratom are only the beginning. Obviously, the manufacturers of these drugs are aware what they are being purchased for, but with that ridiculously trumped-up label, they duplicitously pass them on to consumers. Designer drugs are being created so fast that the FDA has no sufficient amount of time to learn about their properties and thus outlaw them. These new chemicals span the entire gamut of psychotropics, from hallucinogenics to stimulants to sedatives to aphrodisiacs.

How could one speculate on the status of this war between the drug testers and those they are testing? At the moment, with the rate at which new experimental psychotropics are being churned out, it can be justifiably asserted that the druggies are presently winning the battle, and perhaps they have discovered how to once and for all win the battle using this tactic of unremittingly blitzing the opposition with new undetectable products that are simply minor modifications of their parent drugs. We will just have to see how the anti-drug community rallies. Could designer drugs be a setback for them, or the last act, in which the dopers have finally beat the system?