Steven_Seagal

Hello everyone! I have kind of a complex situation to describe to you. My oldest brother has been looking forward to a major job advancement for quite a while now. He absolutely hates the job he is at right now. Anyway, he got a great interview with a snack food vending company and he was really looking forward to this job. He had a meeting with some important manager guy, and he was assured the job position, and was only waiting on the results of a hair sample drug test which he wasn't worried about at all. My brother absolutely hates drugs, and I can swear to you he has never smoked pot or any other type of drug in his life. He gets mad at my mother for even smoking a cigarette! Anyway, he ended up failing the hair test!

The reason is probably because he lived with my other brother for about 3-4 months, and that brother has been a heavy pot smoker (among other drugs) since high school. He had lots of parties at his place while my oldest brother was living there, and I guess many a bowl was smoked, much to my oldest brother's dismay.

My brother is pretty upset about this. It really crushes my heart. He has been working so damn hard for most of his life and it seems like he can never really catch a break. He just has really bad luck.

My question to you, is there any way that a retest could be taken, or perhaps an alternate testing method? Is there any legal precedent for requiring the company to give the person a retest (no test is 100% accurate, c'mon!)? I know if he could take another test, it would come up negative. I just wish there is something I could do for him. I feel really bad, and I KNOW this test was definitely a false positive. My brother would never smoke marijuana, not even to experiment with it.

Anyway, thanks for reading and I appreciate any responses you can offer!

P.S. I just realized that my brother only told me that the test failed, I am not sure if it failed for marijuana or some other drug. The brother that he was staying with does all types of drugs, and I guess he could have failed the test for a different drug. Do some drugs cause more false-positives from secondhand smoke than others? Just wondering. Anyway, thanks!

teufelfisch

If the false positive is from the second-hand smoke, I will be surprised. It's nearly impossible to build up a detectable level of THC metabolites in your body from second-hand smoke. I don't know about other drugs, and discussing them here is off-topic.

I believe your brother ingested some legal substance that caused a false positive. Ibuprofen can do it, as well as pseudoephedrine and some other drugs. Check this information out:

http://www.passyourdrugtest.com/false-positives.htm

If your brother uses any of these substances regularly, they may have caused the false positive. However, since it was a hair test, I must emphasize that he would have to be using these drugs regularly. How often is regularly? Well, it depends on the drug. Some drugs (and their metabolites) are excreted rapidly, others slowly. "Regularly" could be as little as once every few weeks, or as often as several times a day, up to 90 days ago.

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