Drug Testing Pivot: Top Test Manufacturer Replaces Marijuana With Fentanyl In Updated Screening Panel

In an era marked by relentless change and the pressing need to adapt, Psychemedics, a pioneer in the drug screening industry, launches a breakthrough, the Advanced 5-Panel Drug Screen. 

This groundbreaking offering, said Psychemedics in a press release, would transform the way organizations safeguard their workplaces, shifting the spotlight from cannabis to the broader and more dangerous threat: fentanyl.

Complemented by the detection of cocaine, opioids, PCP and amphetamines, the advanced panel was a leap forward in drug screening technology.

As the U.S. grappled with nationwide labor shortages and with marijuana’s legal landscape evolving in nearly every state, changes in drug testing needed to keep up.

Traditional 5-panel drug tests, rooted in a four-decade-old paradigm, failed to evolve in today’s drug market and were unable to detect the rising drug, fentanyl, noted Psychemedics.

“Few challenges in the workplace have undergone as dramatic a transformation as the shifting dynamics between marijuana and fentanyl,” said Brian Hullinger, president and CEO at Psychemedics. “Recognizing this shift, Psychemedics has developed the Advanced 5-Panel to bridge the gap.”

Psychemedics’ advanced 5-Panel Drug Screen offers clients a cost-effective choice to adapt their testing protocols in sync with evolving priorities and employment policies. It also ensured resources and dollars were invested in identifying the threats that matter most these days.

The impact of this offering was not merely theoretical, noted the company’s press release, adding it was supported by a recent independent study encompassing nearly 1 million drug tests. The findings demonstrated hair testing outperformed traditional methods in detecting the most abused substances, such as opioids, cocaine and amphetamines:

25 times more effective at detecting opioids.

23 times more accurate in identifying cocaine use.

13 times more adept at pinpointing amphetamine use.

The Advanced 5-Panel Drug Screen was crafted to focus exclusively on these critical threats, ensuring the highest level of security for organizations as well as individuals.

Fentanyl: Deadliest Drug Of All, Ever

Fentanyl is the deadliest drug in the U.S. today. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated drug overdose deaths increased more than sevenfold from 2015 to 2021.

More than 100,000 deaths a year were linked to drug overdoses since 2020 and about two-thirds of those were related to fentanyl. The death toll was more than 10 times as many drug deaths as in 1988, at the height of the crack epidemic.

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