Drugs of abuse screening and confirmation with lower cutoff values

Although Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has no recommended protocol for analysis of diluted urine where creatinine concentration is below a threshold value, Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) has a protocol for analysis of urine where creatinine concentration is below the threshold value. Even if the creatinine concentration is below the threshold creatinine concentration in urine, CSC protocol allows analysis of such specimen using regular cutoff concentrations of drugs in urine. If initial screening is negative, then these diluted specimens are reanalyzed using lower cutoff concentrations of individual drugs as proposed in the protocol for analysis of diluted specimens. Although percentages of diluted specimens are in general below 5%, analysis of diluted specimens using lower cutoff values aid in detecting illicit drugs in some of the diluted specimens which would have otherwise been missed.