Urine Testing in Specialty Dependency Courts

Urine Testing, Levels, and Interpretation has come up frequently in community of practice discussions. Thanks to our amazing partners at Child and Family Futures (CFF), we’ve put together some resources on these topics that may help. CFF and OJJDP shared a slide deck from a recent presentation on this topic that will provide some guidance and includes many of the resources below. 

We will continue to be in touch about any additional materials as they become available. 

A recent webinar from Abbot Labs, sponsors by NADCP discusses Drug Testing. If you are new to UAs, this is a great place to start! 

Drug Testing 101 Webinar on Demand (recorded 26 Jan 2023)

 

Resources from NADCP and NDCI: 

NDCI’s Drug Court U has a FAQ/Hot Topic page on Drug Testing 

There are a number of resources pages on this site, including:

  • Creatinine Levels
  • Glucose Levels
  • Testing Frequency
  • Diluted Tests
  • Specific Gravity

NADCP Fact Sheet – The Use of Urine Creatinine Concentrations for Abstinence Monitoring in Treatment Courts (2021)

  • Why Creatine Testing is important
  • Creatine, Validity, and Dilute Samples
  • What is Creatine
  • Testing Methodology and Best Practice

NDCI – Drug Court Practitioner Fact Sheet Concentrations(2004) 

This material is older, but the recommendations have not changed. Urine analysis for Alcohol use was the basis for development of many of our UA methods and protocols, but the testing metrics for other substances do not work in the same way.  

  • Interpretation of UA results is extremely complex, only biomedical or lab practitioners can truly interpret results with accuracy 
  • NCDI recommends that levels of substances are not used in determining sanctions
  • Positive or Negative Results are the standard that can hold up to scrutiny, additional tests can be given if results are non-conclusive

NADCP Medical Marijuana Fact Sheet

  • Prohibition of medical marijuana when properly authorized by a doctor.
    • This does not use Washington as an example, but does mention case law in Montana, Oregon, Arizona, Pennsylvania, California, New York and Colorado. There is also a brief note about WA on the bottom of page 2
    • Grouping of states by law into states where marijuana is expressly permitted, those that it is subject to case by case analysis  
  • How to work with participants based on which category our state fits into.

National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare

The National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare has a dedicated topic area to Drug Testing in Child Welfare.  Use their site to gain information on the development of policy and procedures. There have: 

A story of lived experience

Urine Testing Resources