A donor recently came in and gave a specimen my collector would not accept. I am not sure of the exact reason, but the most common reasons are that the specimen’s temperature is out of range or suspected substitution (we get lots of synthetic urine around here.) The collector explained to the donor that we could not accept the specimen because we did not believe it came from his body, and he was welcome to provide another specimen, but, if he left the clinic, it would be a “refusal”. The donor became a little belligerent and wanted to argue that he was not refusing to take the test – he gave us a specimen and we were the ones refusing to accept it. We tried to explain what a “refusal” meant as it relates to drug testing. In the drug testing arena (as in most industries) we have a unique vocabulary that has definitions that differ from society in general. Here are a few of those terms and how they are defined by our industry:
