Spent $150 on those drug test kits for my halfway house clients and they totally backfired

I run a small sober living spot in Portland and bought a bulk pack of 12-panel urine tests from Amazon. Guy who's been clean 8 months popped positive for benzos, but he swore it was his prescription for anxiety. Turns out the test was expired and gave false positives on half the batch. Anyone else deal with faulty test strips messing up trust with residents?

3 comments

3 Comments

claire_grant3419d ago

Those tests were expired and gave false positives" - that's the thing, OP. Test strips don't just go bad like milk and start lying to you. They lose sensitivity over time, meaning they're more likely to miss real drugs, not make up ones that aren't there. If your guy was getting a false positive for benzos, it was probably the wrong test for his prescription, not the expiration date. Some anxiety meds like Klonopin or Ativan don't show up on standard panels the same way Xanax does. I'd double check what specific benzo he takes against what the test actually detects before you blame the whole batch.

brianm6618d ago

Hold up, are we REALLY getting this worked up over a month past the date on a test strip? I've used half empty boxes of test strips that sat in my bathroom cabinet for a YEAR past expiration and they still read EXACTLY the same as a fresh box from CVS. Unless those things were sitting in a puddle of water or literally melting, they're probably fine. People act like an expiration date means the magical chemical inside suddenly turns into poison at midnight. And honestly, if the guy is getting flagged for benzos and he actually takes a benzo prescription, then the test is WORKING. The whole "false positive" panic feels like people looking for an excuse.

the_fiona19d agoTop Commenter

Oh man that reminds me of a time my roommate used an old pregnancy test she found in the bathroom cabinet from like 2015. It came back positive and she was freaking out for a whole weekend. Turns out it was just a line from some weird chemical reaction with the humidity or something idk. She went and bought a new one and it was negative. I dunno if that's the same thing but it was a whole mess. Anyway expiration dates on medical stuff are weird but I'd still rather trust a fresh test than some dusty one that's been in a glove compartment through three summers.