DOT drug tests really aren’t different than any other kind of drug test. I hear from a fair number of people who have to take them, worried that they’re harder to pass. But the only thing that makes them different is the fact that the requirements for a DOT drug test are set at the federal level.

What Is A DOT Drug Test?

For those who may not know, DOT stands for ‘Department of Transportation’. People who have to take a DOT drug test include anyone who drives a large truck or bus for a living, and any workers who are remotely involved with those vehicles – which is basically anyone in the same company.

A federal agency called the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has about a hundred pages of regulations that both employers and labs have to follow when administering DOT drug tests. But fortunately, most of those regulations cover details about the paperwork that has to be done. The drug tests themselves are basically carried out just like they are for any other employer. Which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take them seriously – it just means that you don’t have any extra cause for concern just because you’re taking a DOT drug test as opposed to any other kind.

Does The Dilution Method Work For DOT Drug Tests?

Since the FMCSA requires that a DOT drug test be a urinalysis, then yes, dilution will work fine. At least, it will be if you happen to be a pot smoker.

You’ll be given a standard 5-panel test that looks for other toxins as well, so if you do more than just smoke pot you’ll need to be aware of their detection periods and plan accordingly. For most other drugs besides weed, detection periods are measured in days, not weeks. THC cannabanoids are kind of in a class by themselves because of the way they’re stored in the body (in your fat cells), which is why marijuana use can be detected so much longer than other drugs.

What’s The Best Way To Pass A DOT Drug Test?

Federal regulations require that a lab tech observes you while you’re giving your specimen, so substitution is pretty much impossible, whether it’s a powdered urine kit or a friend’s clean pee. And you should definitely never even attempt to use synthetic urine, just because labs have too many ways to detect that now.

So if substitution isn’t an option (it isn’t for most people, in any situation), that leaves dilution as your only real option. But it’s what I generally recommend to anyone taking a piss test anyway, because when you do it right you’re genuinely able to give a clean specimen right on the spot, without all the stress of trying to use substitution without getting caught.

In any situation where you know your test will be unsupervised, substitution (with something besides synthetic urine) is a guaranteed pass, so in that case you should go for it. But in the case of a DOT drug test, or anytime you think you’ll be observed, dilution is a really close second as far as reliability goes.

Drug Testing Urine – Don’t Get Lazy!

The reason I bring this up is because I’ve known more than one person who didn’t pass a urine test just because they got kind of lazy, frankly. YES, it’s a pain in the butt to dilute before you go to your appointment. You have to drink a hell of a lot of water (which can be uncomfortable, to say the least), and you have to keep track of taking a bunch of supplements for covering up your dilution, yada, yada, yada. But you know what? If you really want to pass a piss test, you just gotta suck it up and do it.

Pretty much everyone is so freaked out and paranoid before we take our very first drug test, that we take every single thing about it dead serious. The problem is, once you successfully pass a drug test it’s easy to start thinking, “Hey, that wasn’t so bad after all. So what’s the big deal?” Well let me tell ya, that is dangerous thinking – because when labs are drug testing urine, they take each and every test REAL serious so you’d better too. If you start cutting corners when you dilute, thinking that you can get away with not doing this thing or that, then you’re playing with fire, man.

What Labs Are Looking For When Drug Testing Urine

Probably the most important advice I have for anyone who has a drug test coming up is to TEST YOURSELF AT HOME before walking into the lab. You can find home test strips for a few bucks each at most major pharmacies, and investing in two or three of them is pretty cheap insurance considering what’s at stake.

And if you’re really desperate to pass a drug test, you might want to also buy a specimen validity test. Those will set you back twenty to thirty bucks, but if you have the money just shut your eyes and do it. Because when a lab is drug testing urine, they aren’t just looking at whether or not you test negative for THC metabolites. They’re also looking for evidence to see if you diluted. If you’re doing a trial run at home first (which I HIGHLY recommend that you do), then a specimen validity test will let you know if you’re doing it right so that the lab won’t flag you for dilution.

Passing a Urine Drug Test Is Totally Do-Able

Bottom line, even though preparing for a drug test can be a hassle, it’s all worth it if you pay attention to each step and do it right. The hassle is nothing compared to losing your job, not being able to get a job, or especially failing a probation test. Big Brother’s drug testing urine isn’t going to go away anytime soon, but with some serious due diligence it doesn’t have to have a major impact on your life.

Myths About How to Pass a Drug Test for Marijuana

There are lots of popular home remedies passed around by very well meaning, but also very misinformed, pot heads. Including cranberry juice, Certo (also known as Sure-Jell), and niacin. You can find some facts about home remedies here.

One of the most prevalent myths about passing a drug test is that you should drink tons of water for days or weeks before your test. The roots of this particular myth are actually grounded in reality (as most myths are), but the real facts about it have become distorted over time.

Possibly the biggest misconception about passing a urine test for marijuana is that you can get rid of THC metabolites by ‘detoxing’ your body – in other words, completely cleansing your body and getting back to square one. This misconception is constantly perpetuated by companies who want you to buy their detox products.

But in fact, because THC metabolites store themselves in your fat cells, the only genuine detoxification you could do would be to somehow lose a lot of weight (and fat) in a big hurry. Needless to say, not a very realistic plan. But if you’re in the position of needing to know how to pass a drug test for marijuana, don’t be discouraged by these facts!

How to Pass a Drug Test for Marijuana – What Does Work?

Hands down, plain old dilution is the MOST effective method for how to pass a drug test for marijuana. But the big problem with it is that most smokers don’t understand exactly how to do it, and more importantly they don’t know how to hide it from the drug testing labs.

Dilution does NOT mean drinking lots of water daily for a long period of time, and it also doesn’t mean adding water to your urine sample during your drug test. For passing a urine test, dilution means drinking enough water in a very short time span to overload your kidneys with fluids. When this happens, your kidneys are temporarily unable to filter the toxins in your body (including THC metabolites).

To put it another way, your urine becomes so diluted  by all the fluids you drank that the metabolite levels are too low to even measure, and voila – you test negative. But this also means that your urine won’t contain any of the elements that it’s supposed to have (including color!), which is the big red flag to testing labs that you’ve deliberately diluted and are trying to beat your drug test. Any serious discussion about how to pass a drug test for marijuana, by using dilution, isn’t complete without information about how to get around this problem.

How to Pass a Drug Test for Marijuana and Get On With Your Life

In order to pass a urine drug test for marijuana, you need to be aware that testing negative is only half the battle – you also need to pass the ‘tampering test.’ There can be NO evidence that you deliberately tried to dilute your urine, or you could fail your drug test on the spot. But fortunately for you (and unfortunately for testing labs), there are some amazingly simple ways to hide dilution. I’ve done it myself many times now, and I’ve passed every single time.

How to pass a drug test for marijuana is serious business, but that doesn’t mean it’s a reason to panic. Go here to find out more about how to pass a drug test using dilution.

JOHN: Yes, the color of the urine specimen (or rather, the lack of it) is the first most obvious indication of a dilution attempt. And even though we’re discussing dilution here, I should probably add that even before that, the temperature of the specimen is recorded to rule out the possibility of substitution. But assuming that the specimen passes the temperature and color test, and that it tests negative for THC metabolites, then additional tests are run to measure its specific gravity (sometimes referred to as relative density). To put it simply, the density of normal, undiluted urine falls within a certain range. Diluted urine will have very little density to it. So if the measured density of the urine specimen is below the normal range reference, a lab will flag it as diluted urine.

As for the specific elements that are measured in a urine drug test, there is only one: creatinine. Not all labs measure this, but the lab that I worked for did and I would say that most do. And as I know you are aware, creatinine levels that are below the normal range are yet one more indication of a diluted urine sample, regardless of whether or not it passes all of the other phases of the test.

DEE: So besides the obvious stuff, are there any specific tips in passing a drug test that you can recommend to people?

JOHN: Well, I think that what you recommend in your book about diluting at home more than adequately addresses all the points I’ve already mentioned, but there are a couple of things that I’d like to elaborate on if I may. One of the most important tips in passing a drug test that you mention yourself is the use of a B-complex vitamin supplement to put some color back into one’s urine after diluting. But the specific B-vitamin that provides the yellow color is B-2, so that’s all a person really needs to buy. And I would actually recommend that people take a higher dose than you recommend, like perhaps 5X the recommended daily dose on the label, or about 50-100mg. I realize that you’re probably trying to be conservative when you tell people to take double the daily recommended dose, but for just one day it’s really quite safe to take the higher amount. And a higher dose will turn urine yellow much quicker, and will also help ensure that it’s still providing color if someone has a long wait at the lab.

The second point I’d like to mention is the use of aspirin. I was impressed that you didn’t claim that this was effective for passing a drug test, but I do think that in the next edition of your book it would be a good idea to leave out any mention of it at all. There is nothing in aspirin that would have any effect in passing a urine test, and its use can be quite dangerous to some individuals. Aspirin is a much more serious drug than many people realize, particularly when it’s taken on an empty stomach. It causes small bleeding in the lining of the stomach wall, which can cause serious complications. So, since it isn’t helpful for passing a drug test anyway, it should be avoided unless it’s clearly indicated for an inflammatory condition.

DEE: Point taken. I do caution people about using aspirin, but if you say it’s not even helpful then I definitely will remove that the next time I revise my e-book. Well, I think we can wrap up and I won’t take up any more of your time, unless there’s something you’d like to add.

JOHN: I think that’s about it. Except that I would just really like people to know that it’s possible to pass urine test if they dilute properly, and that they shouldn’t necessarily see a drug test as a death sentence to their career. You’re providing a great service to people, Dee. Good luck with getting your message out.

DEE: Thanks for the encouragement and pat on the back – it means a lot to me coming from you. And good luck to you too in your new job! Thank you VERY much for taking the time to do this interview with me, John.

JOHN: It’s been a pleasure.

Anyway, someone who bought my e-book recently is – get this – a lab supervisor who actually used to oversee drug testing. He’s a smoker who had to take a drug test himself for a job offer at another lab. Talk about ironic. So I thought to myself, who better to ask for tips in passing a drug test from?? He was open to the idea of letting me interview him via chat, so that I could post it on my blog. It turned out to be pretty long, so I decided to post it in two parts. You can read the rest of this interview at Tips in Passing a Drug Test – Part II.

JOHN: Well you get right to the point don’t you, lol. That’s a fair question and I knew you would probably ask me something like that. It’s a real sore spot for me, because of course I thought about that, on almost a daily basis in fact. I wasn’t directly involved with administering drug tests but I was in charge of the procedure, you’re right. But the bulk of the lab work we did was medical analysis for hospitals and clinics and the drug testing came later after I’d worked there for almost 2 years. Just on principle I would have liked to have quit immediately, but I had a family to consider so it was complicated. I continued working there for another 18 months or so, and it’s a huge relief to me now to finally be working at another lab that doesn’t perform drug testing. So, when you asked me to share some tips in passing a drug test for your readers, I guess I saw it as an opportunity to kind of balance my karma a little.

DEE: Thanks for your honest answer, John, and I’m really glad for your sake that you don’t work there anymore! But that brings me to my next obvious question – as a lab supervisor, I would’ve thought you’d know everything there is to know about this subject. So when you needed to pass a urine drug test for your position at the lab where you’re working now, why did you need to get my e-book on how to pass a drug test? I’ve been curious to know the answer to this ever since you told me about what you do for a living.

JOHN: Good question. Well it’s like this: part of my former job as lab supervisor was to keep up on the literature about current drug testing procedures, and to monitor information about known methods that people use in their attempts to get a false negative on a urine test. So yes, I knew I had all the information I needed to pass a drug test. But to be perfectly honest, I was also just as nervous as anyone else is who is facing a drug test. If for some reason I didn’t pass, it would have seriously damaged my reputation in the industry. So I suppose just as a way to reassure myself that I hadn’t missed anything I was looking on the Internet when I came across your e-book. It intrigued me because it was obvious to me that you had a grasp of the mechanics of hiding dilution, and I suppose I was curious about what you recommended to people.

DEE: So does that mean you agree with the entire premise of my e-book, that dilution is the best way to pass a urine drug test for marijuana?

JOHN: Oh yes, most definitely. It isn’t just the best way, it’s actually the only way. You have pretty good researching skills, and you got that part exactly right.

DEE: Thank you! But there are a lot of tips in passing a drug test out there that don’t even mention dilution, so could you explain, in layman’s terms, why it works so well for passing a urine test?

JOHN: Sure. Well, as I believe you state in your book THC is fat soluble and its metabolites are mainly excreted through the urine. THC metabolites will eventually be eliminated from fat cells over time of course, but since it isn’t possible to eliminate the fat cells themselves quickly, what a person can do is to dilute their urine output so that it has a much lower concentration of these metabolites.

Think of it like this: The human body can only contain so much water, and no more. If a person continues to drink fluids past the point at which the body is well hydrated, then the kidneys attempt to regulate the hydration level. To do that, they begin to pull water from other areas of the body in order to eliminate fluids via urination, to balance the excess fluids being taken in. Without this regulation process, along with frequent urination, water poisoning would occur (which can be fatal). So when a person drinks a large volume of water to pass a drug test, they are not actually increasing the efficiency of the kidneys. What they’re doing is simply increasing the amount of water in their urine, and thus decreasing the concentration of THC metabolites present.

I think it’s important for someone to understand this distinction. With dilution, THC metabolites aren’t actually eliminated from the body (only time or extremely rapid weight loss could accomplish that) but they are simply less concentrated in the urine. But as you know, the dilution process lowers the concentration of every other element that’s normally present in urine, which is how a test lab can identify when someone is actively trying to pass a drug test.

Everyday I email back and forth with people who need to pass a drug test. So this subject has become a part of my everyday life, and I take it dead serious. I have to take a whiz quiz myself about once every six months. And I can’t even describe how much it bums me out every time it’s brought to my attention how many bad ways to pass a drug test there are floating around the Internet.

Here’s an email I got recently that’s a good example of what I’m talking about:

i have a drug test tomorrow so i took 10 niacin about an hr ago. i read that will flush thc out of ur kidneys. besides the extremely sunburnt hot itchy feeling it’s not bad, lol. my appt is at 10 in the morning, do u think it will work by then?

I hardly know where to begin…

First off, taking niacin to pass a urine test not only doesn’t work, it can actually be dangerous. Just google ‘niacin poisoning’ to see what I mean. It’s serious shit when you take 100x the recommended daily dose of ANYTHING.

But even if you didn’t have to worry about going into liver failure from taking too much niacin, the bottom line is it doesn’t work for passing a drug test. Here’s the kicker, though – this rumor got started years ago because of a ‘detoxification program’ invented by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. This guy claimed to have visions or something that made him an expert in everything from the human body to nuclear engineering. No offense to any Scientologists out there, but do you really want to get advice about passing a drug test from this guy?

The reality is, passing a urine test is pretty straightforward. Of all the ways to pass a drug test you can find out there, simple dilution is the only one you can count on to work. Of course you have to make sure the testing lab doesn’t know you’re diluting, but there are lots of ways to handle that. You can take B-12 to make sure your pee is yellow, and drink things like Gatorade so that it passes the gravity test.

Passing a saliva drug test is even easier, since they have such a short detection time. If time is on your side, and you can handle it, you can just abstain for a week and you’ll pass, guaranteed. But if that’s not possible, you still have an excellent chance of passing a saliva test by cleaning your mouth VERY thoroughly.

Bottom line, passing a drug test is a lot easier than you might be thinking it is. Take a deep breath, relax, and use your common sense when you’re wading through all the bogus ways to pass a drug test being sold on the Internet.