How do I take the hair sample?
Is the collection difficult then?
What situations would I consider using hair alcohol testing?
What are the limitations?
Can you tell whether someone is totally abstinent from alcohol?
What information will the report have?
Can you determine how much alcohol a person has had monthly?
How does alcohol in hair chart against alcohol units?
How long has this process been established?
Where does the process originate from?

How do I take the hair sample?
We have trained collectors to do that for you, or we can train someone at your organisation to do the collection.

Is the collection difficult then?
No, but collection is an important part of the process and nearly always needs to be done under strict ‘chain of custody’ rules so that everyone involved can be certain that the sample relates to the correct person.

What situations would I consider using hair alcohol testing?
There are many applications where you would want to determine whether someone had an alcohol problem, or indeed prove they didn’t have a problem. These include:

• child custody cases,
• probation service for alcohol offences,
• safety critical employment,
• suspicions that a corporate l colleague has an alcohol problem
• proof of responsibility, eg eaders, armed forces etc.,
• alcohol treatment programmes,
• screening people in clinical trials,
• suitability for surgery.

Alcohol use is such a big problem we believe it would also be a helpful diagnostic tool in company medicals.

What are the limitations?
Obviously, we need hair. Occasionally drug screening companies encounter someone who has shaved from head to foot, with not a single hair on their body, but that does obviously raise suspicions.

Can you tell whether someone is totally abstinent from alcohol?
No, the method has not been developed for that purpose.

What information will the report have?
It will include the identity details for the sample that you sent us, and then a result for the alcohol level if it is above our cut off level which indicates alcohol consumption is excessive. In that case we will report an actual figure for the result. Results can also be provided in a standard Section 9 legal statement where requested.

Can you determine how much alcohol a person has had monthly?
No. Although we will give a value in our report, we can only say that the value exceeds our interpretation of the cut off level we have set, which is 60 grams of alcohol per day over a protracted period. We cannot interpret how much alcohol was actually consumed. To do so would be scientifically unsound because alcohol is metabolised in slightly different ways by different people.

How does alcohol in hair chart against alcohol units?
The alcohol markers relate to actual units because our cut off level is equivalent to 60 grams per day over a period of time. One U.K. unit is 8 grams or 10 ml of pure alcohol. The amount of drink that equates to 60 grams depends on how strong the drink is. So on average we can assume about seven units daily could result in a positive.

How long has this process been established?
We have been working on developing this technology and validating its accuracy for several years but it is only now being offered commercially for the first time.

Where does the process originate from?
It has been developed by a combination of German and English laboratory collaboration using leading experts in this field and the latest analytical technologies.