Which herbs may test positive on Drug test?

[Guest guest]

Does anyone know which medicinals pose a risk in drug tests (e.g.

pre-employmente drug screening)? I assume huo ma ren is a risk.

Anyone have experience in this?

[Guest guest]

, " Tim Sharpe "

<listserve@d...> wrote:

>

> Does anyone know which medicinals pose a risk in drug tests (e.g.

> pre-employmente drug screening)? I assume huo ma ren is a risk.

> Anyone have experience in this?

 

I'm not an expert on drug testing, but I once wrote a paper on

potential herb-drug interactions of Chinese medicinals that had some

info that may be useful to your question. I looked up a few things on

drug testing just now and I can offer some theoretical ideas based on

the chemical constituents of common Chinese herbs. Bear in mind that

I have no experience in the area of drug testing whatsoever.

 

Firstly, patent medicines may be adulterated with drugs, so we can

only realistically deal with known plant and animal substances in

their crude forms or extracts, not pharmaceutical preparations of

unknown constituents.

 

Apparently the five drug classes that are routinely screened for (the

" NIDA-5 " ) are:

1) cannabinoids

2) opiates

3) cocaine

4) amphetamines

5) PCP

 

Of these, cocaine and PCP are not concerns. PCP and related

substances are not, to my knowledge, present in botanicals. Cocaine

is found botanically only in the coca plant of South America, not

anywhere in Chinese herbal medicine.

 

Amphetamine, once believed to be a purely man-made compound, has been

found naturally in a tree from Texas, but not in any Chinese

medicinals. However, ephedrine has been reported to produce

false-positive results for amphetamines, so we can expect that ma

huang would be an herb to avoid before a drug test.

 

Phenethylamine drugs are rarely tested for themselves, but it is

possible that some phenethylamines may trigger a positive result for

amphetamine tests. While there is some evidence (in animals) that the

liver can aminize essential oils such as elemecin, eugenol, safrole,

asarone, myristicin, etc. into phenethylamines, my brief search on

false positives for drug tests didn't implicate such substances. In

other words, medicinals such as rou dou kou, xi xin, shi chang pu, and

ding xiang are unlikely to produce false positives on drug tests for

amphetamines (or the more rare extended tests for phenethylamines such

as MDMA). It is theoretically possible that if someone had a high

dose of such medicinals and concurrently had the rare and more

expensive tests for the drugs that their oils are chemically similar

to, then maybe you could get a false positive. I don't know if there

is enough known about such things to say one way or the other,

certainly I don't know enough myself to say whether it is possible or

not.

 

Apparently hemp seed oil can produce false positives for cannabinoids,

so huo ma ren is probably something to avoid, although of course it

has a negligible quantity of THC.

 

This leaves narcotics. Obviously, ying su ke (qiao)- poppy husk-

would produce a positive test result, but it is not legal for internal

use in most Western countries anyway. Poppy seeds can apparently

produce false positives. Quinolone drugs can apparently also cause

false positives. Corydalis (yan hu suo) contains isoquinolones- I

don't know whether they are similar enough to be problematic at all.

 

Testing for indole drugs is very rare, although apparently LSD is more

commonly tested for now that the test has become less expensive. Qian

niu zi is botanically related to Mexican and Hawaiian morning glory

seeds that contain LSA (lysergic acid amide), which can cross-trigger

a positive test for LSD, but I have never seen any evidence that the

Chinese species used as qian niu zi contains LSA. Beta-carbolines

(found in herbs such as ren shen, gou qi zi, di fu zi, bai ji li, etc)

are not tested for, nor are they illegal to begin with. Methylated

tryptamines are likewise not tested for, nor are they even known to be

testable, with the exception of psilocybin. Thus, herbs like wu zhu

yu (containing 5-MeO-DMT, a non-scheduled drug) and lu gen (containing

DMT, a scheduled but not screened drug) should not be a problem.

Regardless, none of these things are a concern for general employment

testing, they would only show up in hospital tests or tests for

criminal cases, parole, etc.

 

With the exception of poppy husk, ephedra, and nutmeg, none of the

above plants are known to be psychoactive as single agents or to have

any significant potential for abuse.

 

My advice: Don't use illegal drugs if you are going to take a drug

test. Avoid huo ma ren and ma huang.

 

There is a great deal of information available on the internet about

drug testing. As I said, I gathered all the above info on the drug

tests from a few minutes surfing the web just now. It is even

possible to buy home kits to drug test your children when they come

home from school. Of course, millions of American children are

required to take amphetamines in order to attend school these days.

Strange world we live in.

 

Interestingly, I once saw an herbalist dispense a formula for a

customer who had to take a drug test that he evidently was concerned

about. I thought the guy was crazy for seeking a Chinese herbal

formula for a situation that surely never existed in the development

of Chinese medicine. I told him that I thought it was extremely risky

to use a Chinese formula to mask a drug test, especially if employment

or legal sanctions hinged on the result. He wanted to take the

chance. I saw the same customer about a year later and asked him how

it went. He passed. Said it worked like a charm. Go figure.

 

Eric