Drug test Drug test A drug test is a technical analysis of a biological specimen, for example urine, hair, blood, breath, sweat, and/or oral fluid/saliva — to determine the presence or absence of specified parent drugs or their metabolites. Major applications of drug testing include detection of the presence of performance enhancing steroids in sport, employers and parole/probation officers screening for drugs prohibited by law (such as cannabis, cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin) and police officers testing for the presence and concentration of alcohol (ethanol) in the blood commonly referred to as BAC (blood alcohol content). BAC tests are typically administered via a
Dirty drug Dirty drug In pharmacology, a dirty drug is an informal term for drugs that may bind to many different molecular targets or receptors in the body, and so tend to have a wide range of effects and possibly adverse drug reactions. Today, pharmaceutical companies try to make new drugs as selective as possible to minimise binding to antitargets and hence reduce the occurrence of side effects and risk of adverse reactions. Examples of compounds often cited as "dirty drugs" include chlorpromazine, olanzapine, dextromethorphan and ibogaine, all of which bind to multiple receptors or influence multiple receptor systems. There may be