After your first failed drug test on probation, you need to know exactly what to do and say to get out in the best shape.
After your second failed drug test on probation? Well, that’s a real problem but there’s still a chance if you know what to do. I’ll talk you through what happens with probation drug testing, and how best to act after failing one or two drug tests.
Plus, I’ll talk you through simple methods you can use to avoid failing a drug test at all.
How Does Drug Testing Work With Probation In The USA?
Probation in the USA actually works very different to many other countries, because it’s more widely used and money and conditions are tied to it.
The American system relies on judges making decisions on probation, which isn’t the case in some other countries.
On top of that, you’ve got your individual circumstances, and state laws and variations to consider as well. So how it works for you may not be even how it works for someone else even in your locality right now.
Drug tests are usually commissioned with suspicion, or regularity on specific programs.
Occasionally, they are a condition of remaining on probation, with random testing throughout. Overall, drug testing helps to back the goals of probation:
- Promotes rehabilitation
- Constantly monitor progress
- Acts as a deterrent for relapse
- Encourages compliance with conditions
You Failed Your First Drug Test On Probation – Now What?
What happens after your 1st failed drug test on probation will depend on three key factors:
- The terms of your probation
- The judge and probation officers input
- Your attitude
As it’s impossible for you to know how the judge and probation officers involved, along with other people and agencies, will react, all you can look at your attitude and know the terms of your probation.
These three areas are key in terms of what generally happens and what you can influence.
- Violation of probation hearing
There will likely be a probation violation hearing, scheduled by your probation officer.
This will usually be a formal hearing where a judge will review the situation and will decide on the outcome. This could be a range of outcomes depending on how severe the violation is, your overall behavior, attitude, compliance, and your prior criminal record.
Being positive and humble throughout the lead up to, and in your conduct during, the probation violation hearing can often work wonders for a first offense
- Implementation of consequences
If it’s a first-time offense and your criminality is relatively minor, then you could just get a warning.
This will especially be the case for offenses, with a first violation, where you have previously shown good conduct during your probation and in adhering to its conditions.
A second option is to increase your community service hours, this could be in combination with a warning that any further violation would lead to the withdrawal of your probation or some other stated sanction. You could be fined for the probation violation, but this isn’t as common as warnings and community service hour changes.
Another option is to extend your probation period, implement more severe limitations, or even withdraw probation entirely.
In addition to all that, for failing a drug test, you could be put on a substance abuse treatment program, put in rehab, or have an existing program intensified or extended.
Note also that several of those outcomes can be combined to create a multifaceted outcome that must be obeyed.
- How you act matters
If you are in denial and belligerent, then you will usually get harsher penalties. People will want to shock you into change or feel more aggressive in wanting to put you in your place.
Remember, probation is about the following goals:
- Ensuring compliance
- Monitoring progress
- Promoting rehabilitation
- Acting as a strong deterrent
So if you act with belligerence or indifference, you are more likely to face a deterrent step, rather than promoting rehabilitation and giving you a second chance.
Also the severity of the offence you were convicted for comes into play here. Being humble, positive, and apologetic, can still go a long way even for more serious offences.
This can mean being proactive in discussing help and next steps yourself. Try and show that you are positive about the problem.
Ask for more professional assistance, and demonstrate awareness. You can get more professional assistance through potential in or outpatient programs, support groups, and one-to-one counseling (sometimes, if available).
Talking from a position of understanding the situation helps as well. Get an attorney involved if you are unsure, at least make sure you understand the process thoroughly so you know what you’re talking about, otherwise you could come across as not caring or buying into the process.
You Just Failed Your Second Drug Test On Probation – Now What?
If you’ve already failed the first drug test and are now facing failing your second drug test on probation, then you obviously know already things are going to be pretty serious in comparison to the first failure.
Usually, the action taken against you will obviously be harsher, but also intended to be more decisive to end the situation.
This could mean the following types of responses:
- Much tighter control on your activities
- Removal of probation completely
- Larger combination penalties
- An inpatient rehab center
- For alcohol SCRAM abstinence monitoring
Obviously sending you to jail is the ultimate response. But for failing a drug test they can sometimes be reluctant to do so because it increases their chance of rehabilitation failure in the future.
Again, your attitude is crucial. Don’t admit defeat, remain positive, tell them you can change, tell them you can do it, tell them to please not end the probation but give you a chance no matter how scrutinizing and controlled you are during that chance.
Remember to understand the goals of probation, and play into that with your responses. Ultimately it’s better to rehabilitate someone so they can go back into society and act well, so they are not a burden any longer financially or on other people.
What To Tell Your Probation Officer When You Fail A Drug Test?
Whether it’s your first or second failure of a drug test, what you tell your probation officer when you fail that drug test is crucial. Your initial attitude and information given can sway the probation officer into the potentially better or worse assessment and analysis.
How you act towards it, the information you give, the situation, how you play things, your knowledge, and your desire to change or put things right, can all soften the probation services’ initial assessment and recommendation for the judge.
How To Pass A Urine Drug Test Every Single Time
Now look, if you have committed a serious offence and are also taking narcotics, then you really should be honest and not be looking to avoid facing the music. And if you have a real drug problem, then you’re doing yourself no favors by trying to avoid the inevitable outcome of having to face your problems at some stage and clean yourself up.
Things will only get worse, not better if you try and hide the problem. The explosion will only be larger down the line, probably ending up with you going to jail.
But for more minor offenses, and where your drug use has been recreational and controlled, then sure, it’s unfair for you to end up in jail or in some ridiculous program.
So be honest with yourself, and look at what you should do. If you really feel avoiding getting caught is the best scenario for you, then these are the methods you can use to pass a probation drug test.
1. Synthetic Urine (Best Buy: Quick Luck)
Your 1st drug test on probation will almost always be unsupervised and a standard five panel urine drug test.
This would only change for more specific circumstances where a higher number of panels (looking for more types of drug) was used, but would still probably be unsupervised.
Supervised testing, where you will be indirectly or directly observed, is usually only done for retesting a failure, a second drug test probation failure, or specific circumstances where cheating was highly suspected.
You would be told in advance (usually 24 hours notice) if the test is to be supervised, where a proper physical search would probably also take place.
Remember that for probation drug testing you could be properly physically searched even for an unsupervised test. But they usually won’t touch you intimately, so as long as you discreetly tuck the sample into a pair of underwear, so it’s pulled tight against the body in an area they can’t directly touch, underneath baggy bottoms, then you should be fine.
The best product on the market to use is called Quick Luck, which has the following properties:
- Highly complex, containing 14 chemicals found in urine
- Contains the right proportions of key chemicals urea, uric acid, and creatinine
- Is within the correct specific gravity and pH ranges
- Looks, froths, and smells like human urine
Not only will Quick Luck pass the validity checks and any human scrutiny, but it will also allow you to submit the sample within the correct temperature range.
Legally, a sample has to be between 90°F and 100°F. Outside these ranges it is unlikely to have come from the human body.
Most products rely on a heatpad, which can kick out a variable heat and fail. But Quick Luck uses something called ‘heat activator powder’.
Simply tap in about one-quarter and shake it gently until it’s dissolved. Watch the temperature strip for 60 seconds, and add a little more in steps until you get a good reading.
2. Detox Drinks (Best Buy: Rescue Cleanse)
If the drug test you are facing is supervised, or you are scared that a fake sample could get found even during an unsupervised test, then your best bet is to use a good quality detox drink.
Note the detox drink is only a masking agent that will stop toxins from flowing into your bladder for a few hours.
Rescue Cleanse is the best on the market, and works in the following way:
- When you drink it, the volume of liquid, along with the ingredients, pushes out more toxins than can be achieved naturally in the same time. This creates a gap in the flow of toxins to the kidneys and then out into the bladder. This gap, usually between two and five hours in length, is when fresh urine entering the bladder will be free of drug metabolites and will pass a drug test.
- Rescue Cleanse also floods the body with things found naturally in urine. These are passed through as waste in the correct proportion, meaning that your urine will still pass validity checks and human scrutiny.
Simply drink Rescue Cleanse in about 10 minutes, urinate three or four times over the next hour, and then go and submit your sample as quickly as possible to stand the best chance of passing.
3. Detox Pills (Best Buy: Toxin Rid)
The third option is to be genuinely clean to pass a drug test. Mostly that will be unrealistic naturally, but using high-quality detox pills to speed up the removal of toxins from your body by 50% or faster, it’s possible to get clean in just a few days.
Toxin Rid of is the best on the market. Simply take three pills per hour for the first five hours of each day while living a healthy lifestyle.
On the day before your test, drink the included detox liquid. You consume it in two different batches, and it helps to push out a lot more of the remaining toxins, should there be any.
If you’ve only got a day or two before your test, you can use a one or two-day course, and take more than 15 pills per day, by taking three per hour for more hours per day to push out even more toxins.
At the very least Toxin Rid will remove a ton of metabolites so there are significantly fewer on the day of your drug test. Then, you can use Rescue Cleanse to mask the few remaining drug metabolites, which it will do for longer.
