Question
Nurse Red, How does DOT treat negative, dilute drug screens? Is it something that should be retested or considered suspicious? I am not especially concerned about a particular driver but it does happen every once in a while. If it is something that should be addressed, I want to make it company policy.
Answer
A negative dilute MAY be retested once. That will be up to the company. Hopefully they will treat all the same and not pick and choose who retests and who doesn't.
A positive dilute is still a positive.
Keeping you safe, healthy and on the road.
Visit us at Visit us at
Answer
Thanks for the info. Just not sure how they were viewed or if it was a reason to worry. It would not be a random thing if it becomes company policy, we don't need that stuff on the road. I wasn't sure how many valid reasons there are for a dilute test or if it is a signal that someone is trying to hide something.
Answer
Many people just naturally drink a lot of water. Some drink it as part of a dietary plan, some are outside summer workers.
If someone is "cramming" for their drug test, they may drink a large amount of fluid in order to hurry up and produce a specimen so they can get on with their day. That is the reason for the shy bladder regs. allowing only 40 ounces of fluid in a 3 hr period... or until 45 ml of urine is produced.
However......one of the most common attempts to beating a drug test is to drink large amounts of fluid and take some sort of diuretic to push the fluids thru the kidneys as fast as possible. In an attempt to wash the drug out of the system prior to testing.
Some will also attempt to add water to a specimen in order to weaken any drugs present or in an attempt to produce an adequate amount of specimen.
We recommend to our clients that they retest all NEGATIVE dilutes. We also strongly encourage them to give the person a very limited time (hours) to report to the collection facility when notified of the need to retest. This helps eliminate the ability to take diuretics, pump large amounts of fluids, etc.
Hopefully your collection facility is diligent in monitoring the employee's fluid intake while they are waiting to test.
Retesting is not effective if they are allowing the employee to sit and drink a gallon of water over a period of 2 or 3 hours all the while saying "Nope, I can't go yet". This is a common ruse that well trained collectors can spot and deal with.
Keeping you safe, healthy and on the road.
Visit us at Visit us at