Drug-user hair test to be pushed

THE health department will promote a testing method that uses hair instead of blood or urine samples to test for drug use, according to the developer, the Yunnan Institute for Drug Abuse.

Southwest China’s Yunnan Province borders the notorious Golden Triangle drug production base in southeast Asia and is a major front in the war against drug crime.

The Yunnan Institute for Drug Abuse said it has conducted the new test on 100 people, all new arrivals at the rehabilitation center.

Wen Pinyuan, director of the institute under the provincial health department, said the test showed 93 percent were morphine or methamphetamine positive. The result was the same as the previous result from urine drug testing on the same group of people.

“Compared with blood and urine samples, hair samples have the advantage of being more stable, easier to obtain and preserve,” he said.

Wen said hair samples can preserve drug residue for weeks and even months, giving drug enforcement officers a larger time frame to confirm if a suspect is a drug user.

In the first quarter of this year, Yunnan police seized 5,759.7 kilograms of drugs, up 31.4 percent year on year. Over 12,000 drug users were placed in mandatory drug rehabilitation programs during the period, officials said.

Wen said the institute will continue to optimize the use of the hair drug testing technology, making it more accurate and economical.