Marijuana drug test is conducted at various places including schools, workplaces, and other government organizations. Testing marijuana is done by various samples including urine, saliva, hair, sweat and blood. Let us know about a saliva marijuana test.
A saliva drug test is one of the most commonly used methods for determining whether an individual has consumed marijuana. The test can even detect the recent use of marijuana. The drug that is consumed before two hours of test is also detected. It is the active compound THC but not the metabolite that is detected by marijuana saliva test. Mostly a marijuana drug test using saliva is done at the time of accidents which occur at workplace. The oral drug test does not hurt the individual and hence is particularly non-invasive.
Many on-site kits are available that detect THC at a cut-off level of 50ng/ml for a range of 1-2 hours. However, it is detected at a cut-off level of 4ng/ml by a laboratory test for a range of 8-12 hours.
There are many advantages of marijuana drug test with saliva. Adulteration of the sample is not done as it is directly taken from the mouth by means of a swab. The collection of sample is also not embarrassing and does not require privacy. Hence many employers use saliva marijuana test. In cases of employee drug testing, the sample can be selected from the workplace itself. This may help in reducing the cost of collection site. The results are also quick and accurate and can be obtained within 10 minutes.
However there are some limitations of using this method. The saliva samples gets evaporated within 24 hours. Hence all the process should be completed fast in order to get the result. If the test has to be done for second time or for confirmation, the sample is not available. This may sometimes leads to use of other samples for testing.
