NIDA 5 Drug Test

NIDA 5 refers to the five drugs of abuse that are required to be tested for by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA). The five drugs required for testing are Cannabinoids (THC), Cocaine, Amphetamines, Opiates and PCP. The NIDA 5 does not include for current drug usage patterns. In cases where a broader range of drug testing is required, we recommend either the 10 Panel Drug Test or the 12 Panel Drug Test, which tests for twelve different types of drugs.

Drug testing in the United States began in the late 1980s with the testing of certain federal employees and specified DOT regulated occupations. Drug testing guidelines and processes, in these areas exclusively, are established and regulated (by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration or SAMHSA, formerly under the direction of the National Institute on Drug Abuse or NIDA) require that companies who use professional drivers, specified safety sensitive transportation and/or oil and gas related occupations, and certain federal employers, test them for the presence of certain drugs. These test classes were established decades ago, and include five specific drug groups. They do not account for current drug usage patterns. For example, the tests do not include semi-synthetic opioids, such as oxycodone, oxymorphone, hydrocodone, hydromorphone, etc., compounds that are highly abused in America:

1. Cannabinoids (marijuana, hashish)
2. Cocaine (cocaine, benzoylecognine, cocaethylene)
3. Amphetamines (amphetamine, methamphetamine)
4. Opiates (heroin, opium, codeine, morphine)
5. Phencyclidine (PCP)

While SAMHSA/NIDA guidelines only allow labs to report quantitative results for the "NIDA-5" on their official NIDA tests, many drug testing labs and on-site tests also offer a wider or "more appropriate" set of drug screens which are more reflective of current drug abuse patterns. As noted above, these tests include synthetic pain killers such as Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Hydrocodone, Hydromorphone, benzodiazepines (Valium, Xanax, Klonopin, Restoril) and barbiturates in other drug panels (a "panel" is a predetermined list of tests to run). The confirmation test (usually GCMS) can tell the difference between chemically similar drugs such as methamphetamine and ecstasy, and in the absence of detectable amounts of methamphetamine in the sample, the lab will either report the sample as negative or report it as positive for MDMA. What the lab reports to the client depends upon whether MDMA was included in the panel as something to be tested for.