Heroin is popular among high school and college grads. According to the Monitoring The Future study, 1.3% of the 8th grade students abused heroin in their past lifetime, and .8% in the past year, and .4% in the past month. The percentages were much higher in the 10th and 12th grads. These alarming numbers tells the need for active heroin drug testing at schools, colleges, and other places to deter the drug abuse.

Heroin drug test is usually conducted to identify the presence of its drug metabolites in a body. The presence of the drug can be monitored by different types of tests suitable to the convenience of test administration.

Urine Drug Testing:

Urine drug testing is the most common method used for drug detection. It is less expensive when compared to other tests. The cut off level for this is 300ng/mL. The detection period of the drug is 2-4 days. This test strip gives positive result if the drug in the urine specimen exceeds the cut off level and negative if it is below the cut off level.

Hair Drug Testing:

Hair drug testing is not the common method used for drug testing. It is expensive when compared to the Urine Drug Testing. This test can be used to detect substance use for a long period of time, but it cannot detect drug abuse within past one week. The cut off level for this test is 0.1ng/mL. It takes several months to detect the drug. This test gives positive result if the drug in the hair specimen exceeds cut off level and negative if it is below the cut off level.

Saliva Drug Testing:

Saliva drug testing test is also not the common method. This test can detect more recent use of the drug and it is very easy to administer but it is still more expensive than Urine Drug Testing. The cut off level for this test is 40ng/mL. It takes some weeks to detect the drug. This test gives positive result when the drug in the saliva specimen exceeds cut off level and negative if it is below the cut off level.

With increase in use of Heroin, concerns on health of abusers and effects on the society are growing. Parents should observe their children’s habits in order to reduce the usage of drugs. For tracing these two drugs one should select appropriate method of drug testing which gives accurate test results.