The Science Behind Hair Drug Testing Analysis

Groundbreaking research by our scientists in the 1970’s found that hair could be a reliable and highly stable medium to detect drug usage.

• Drugs are metabolized by our organs and enter the bloodstream.
• Both the parent drug and its metabolites in the bloodstream are deposited in the growing hair’s follicle.
• As hair grows, these trace amounts of chemicals deposit into the hair strand’s cortex and remain where they are deposited.
• As hair grows beyond the scalp line, the chemicals are collected with a hair sample.

This process forms a historical record of use—like a tape recorder. Each one-half inch of hair holds approximately 30 days of drug usage history. A sample snipped close to the scalp contains a chronological usage record of drug type and quantity. Psychemedics technology extracts that information and equips an organization to identify chronic or habitual drug users. As a note, most often, we test a 1.5-inch sample, giving us a 90-day picture of usage.

Opium Was This Poet’s Drug Of Choice.

John Keats was a revered Romantic poet who died at age 25 and was long suspected of over-medicating himself with the opium-derived drug laudanum for symptoms of the tuberculosis he suffered. Medically-trained, he was prescribing himself a common painkiller of the era and one that was regularly used by others in the circle of artists with whom he spent his days. The question for historians was whether he came to use opium excessively and whether it may have impacted his works.

In 1985 Werner Baumgartner, the founder of Psychemedics, received a 167-year old sample of the poet’s hair from a rare book collection at the University of Texas. Despite its age, Baumgartner detected increasing usage of the drug before Keats’ death, most likely as a result of the painkillers he was given.

We answered the question about his use of opium.

Whether his work was impacted is a question for the literary scholars.

A Beethoven Myth Debunked.

In 1996, a group of Americans purchased a lock of the composer’s hair with the aim of establishing a center housing Beethoven artifacts. Historians had long theorized that Beethoven relied on morphine to stifle excruciating pain brought on by several ailments during the waning years of his life. One of the investors in the purchase, a physician, wanted a few of the strands tested to determine if the historians’ theories were accurate.

The tests were run by Psychemedics. And the results conclusively proved that in spite of the severe pain he suffered in his final year, no drugs were detected in the final 3-4 months of Beethoven’s life. All because a single lock of hair retained the history of a great composer’s daily rituals of 170 years ago.

A longstanding myth about a revered composer debunked.

Not possible with a urine test. Not possible with oral fluids.