Last updated : July 7, 2025
If an employee tests positive for drugs, most companies don’t pull any punches. The employee is let go immediately.
Desperate times call for desperate measures though. Many turn to the internet or to other drug users looking for a way to mask their drug use and cheat the test. Drug testing myths versus fact is apt to throw that plan right out the laboratory window.
Drug users seeking employment often refrain from using until they get hired to be sure and ace the pre-employment drug test. Many employers drug test potential new hires and then employees are never required to take another—unless the user is involved in a workplace accident anyway. Still, some job applicants get caught off guard and become desperate to find a quick fix to their problem. Random employee drug tests cause panic for others. Whatever the scenario, if called up for a drug test, users often fall for drug testing myths in hopes of obtaining a negative result.
Brain fog clouds judgement
Drug addicts are in denial about a lot of things—one of them is that they function normally even when they’re high. So, even though they are completely aware that company policy states drug use is prohibited, in their mind’s eye, it doesn’t apply to them personally. Therefore, there is no reason they shouldn’t do drugs whenever they want.
In other words, it’s okay to cheat.
Huh? Talk about drug testing myths—in reality, this line of thinking might be best described as delusional. Someone unwilling—or unable to refrain from drug use long enough to clear them out of their system has an addiction. Or—as is wont to happen in today’s culture—suffers from narcissism.
Either way, when someone is confronted as having a drug problem, the word addiction almost always falls on deaf ears. The conversation often ends abruptly because arguing and insistence can do more harm than good until someone hits rock bottom. Until that moment, they don’t believe abstinence from drugs should be an option that pertains to them for any reason.
We call them myths for a reason
Users searching for a quick fix often buy products that claim to mask drug use for a specific amount of time. The employee determines when to take the product so that it will be effective when providing the test specimen. The same goes for the multitude of home remedy methods that are said to produce a negative test result. If you’re an employer, don’t worry. None of them are reliable in accomplishing the goal.
Still, trying to explain this to a drug user can have as much effect as talking to a brick wall.
Desperate times, ridiculous measures
Undoubtedly, someone out there has typed “drug testing near me” into their search engine. Some drug users willingly pay for an official drug test over the home test kits sold off the shelves to know if they’re “clean.” However, it’s far more likely they would type in a few “cheat the test” related keywords into the search bar. It yields pages of links.
The following drug testing myths are popular with users hoping to “beat the test.”
Dilute the specimen
In the early days of drug testing, this was a tried and true cheating method. The water would flush out the bladder and drug levels wouldn’t reach the positive level. However, times change. Laboratory equipment, as well as drug tests, themselves, have evolved over the years.
Today, drinking too much water—or any liquid, for that matter—yields an undetermined result. Diluted test specimens are deemed inconclusive yet still yield a positive or negative drug test result. That’s really all employers want to know about. A positive dilute drug test means the person tested positive for drugs, and negative means they didn’t.
A “positive dilute” result is usually grounds for immediate dismissal. However, when an employee drug test registers as “negative dilute,” employers often require a second test—some mandate that this test be observed. Even though a negative dilute indicates that there were no drugs in the system, the diluted specimen could indicate someone was trying to mask drug use.
Detox your system
It doesn’t matter what drug testing method an employer uses; there’s a purported detox product for it on the market. Shampoos for the hair follicle test, mouthwashes, mints, and the like for the mouth swab test, and detox drinks in various flavors to enable drug users to “pass” the urine test. All of these products are said to produce a negative test result for a specific amount of time. They also say “toxins”—aka drug metabolites—are completely eliminated from the body.
First of all, if a product claims to detox your body for a specific window of time, they are not detoxifying at all. This false claim is cause for doubt regarding anything that the company says. It’s probably best to set it right back on the shelf—and stop using drugs instead.
How could someone trust the product if they can’t believe the maker? Many manufacturers are just attempting to grab someone’s hard-earned and perhaps soon-to-be extremely limited amount of money. You know, all things considered, the same could be said of the test taker. They’re attempting to keep grabbing their employer’s hard-earned money deceptively.
The secondhand smoke screen
Proclaiming a positive marijuana result was because they’ve been around others who smoke pot isn’t even an option that should be tried. Studies back up the fact that while it is technically possible, the levels of secondhand room are not apt to be achieved in reality.
Accept in the rarest of circumstances, people who are around others who smoke, but don’t consume themselves, aren’t testing positive. They can’t inhale enough of the smoke from the surrounding air to have that effect.
Poppy seeds pop positive
In the past, it could have been possible for someone to consume enough poppy seeds to cause them to test positive for opiates. However, the Department of Health and Human Services updated its testing levels in the late 1990s.
The old concentration of 300 ng/mL (nanograms per milliliter) could cause a positive test result after eating a poppy seed bagel or even a good dousing of dressing. However, the new concentration level of 2,000 ng/mL will not produce a positive result.
If a test pops positive for opiates and the test subject cries “poppy seeds,” a quick check of the panel levels should confirm that they’re trying to pull a fast one.
Drink me
It’s said that the acidity levels in some liquids mask drug metabolites in the urine. Therefore, drinking cranberry juice, pickle juice, vinegar, and even lemon juice will supposedly cause a false negative on a urine test. It doesn’t. However, it can mess with the pH levels in the urine, and this denotes to lab techs that someone tampered with the specimen.
Also, if the user chooses to try drinking enough vinegar to get the pH level off, it’s probably going to cause bouts of explosive diarrhea until it has passed through the system.
Let’s hope that doesn’t happen while they’re waiting to give their specimen.
It’s a hairy situation
Cleansing the hair before a hair follicle test doesn’t do any good. The metabolites grow out of the follicle directly into the center of the hair. There is no way to mask them.
These supposed methods don’t work either:
- Draw a bucket of water and let it sit overnight. Add a generous amount of lemon juice to it and wash your hair.
- Combine dried rosemary leaves with grapeseed oil. Heat the mixture on low for three hours, leave to cool overnight, and then apply to the hair. It is unclear if this is supposed to mask metabolites or rid the hair of them.
- Rinse hair with vinegar, salicylic acid, and, lastly, detergent to pass the hair follicle drug test.
- Bicarbonate of soda is a popular choice for producing fake negative results on hair tests. The recipes often include mixing baking soda with apple cider vinegar and applying it to the hair to soak. Another recipe calls for adding a cup of sea salt to the vinegar mix.
Slim Picking
The only idea we have seen that would prevent someone from failing a hair drug test is to shave. It would certainly keep the technicians from getting a specimen from the head. Do they realize, though, that if someone doesn’t have hair on their head that technicians just collect it from other areas of the body?
They do.
Talk about red flags. It would seem more than a little bit suspicious if someone showed up with a clean-shaven body on the day of the test.
Total insanity
Some methods can only be categorized as beyond desperate and instead considered insane.
Are you ready?
- Use dog urine in place of your own. Seriously. How gross is that? And, how do you collect the sample? And, even if someone manages to accomplish it, they think the lab won’t know the difference?
- Steal your specimen from the laboratory or testing site. The theory goes that the laboratory would never admit to having a sample stolen and would report the result as negative rather than admit to what happened. Again, we say, seriously?
- Wash your mouth out or gargle with bleach to beat a mouth swab test. Can you even comprehend ignorance to that degree? Seriously! Your horrified expression mirrors mine here, doesn’t it?
You know what they say about the best defense
It’s estimated that 77% of the drug users in our country are employed full or part-time. That equals approximately 13.6 million people in the workforce who are using drugs.
Educating employees about the dangers of drugs is a great offense. Rather than trying to fake a test to keep a job, employees should think about giving sobriety a chance. A drug-free lifestyle is the most productive and rewarding way to live—at work and play.
If you’re reading this and suffer from a drug problem, seek help if it’s gone past casual drug use! Give living drug-free a try. If you find it’s not as easy to go without as you have always told yourself it would be, don’t use it as an excuse to give up. Instead, talk to someone you trust.
It could even be someone at work. You will likely find that those you might try so hard to fool will try harder to see you get help. We’ll be rooting for you, too.
If you’re an employer and an employee tests positive for drugs, remember that could be the rock bottom moment in their lives. You know the one we mean, the point when there’s nowhere left to go but up.
Be kind. Even though you’re disappointed and likely going to fire the person, an encouraging word and expressed hope for them to seek help could be the catalyst to cause them to go into rehab. Remember that because, in the end, you might be saving their life.
