Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Conducting Drug-Test by Using Oral Fluid as Specimen

The other name of the oral fluid is mixed saliva. This oral fluid comes from three major and different minor salivary glands. Saliva is the fluid which is collected from a specific salivary gland and this is free from other materials.

Oral fluid consists of plasma electrolytes like potassium, sodium, chloride and bicarbonate and other plasma constituents. Enzymes, immunoglobulins, and DNA are other plasma constituents. An adults 1000 ml of oral fluid per day and while asleep the oral fluid produced is 0.05 ml/min, while spitting it can be 0.5 ml/min, and while chewing gum it can be 1 ml/min to 3 ml/min.


So, this oral fluid is used in drug testing for short drug detection time. Usually, this is used for criminal justice. Oral fluid is used for many drugs like ethanol, methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, marijuana and etc. The detection time of the test depends on the type of drug.

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