Court-ready hair drug testing

A core part of what we do — child welfare assessments, custody disputes, employment and criminal matters, across Australia.

Results go to you, or to a party you nominate in writing, and to nobody else unless the law compels it.

A hair follicle drug test is the test described on this page — the same appointment, the same 95-substance panel, the same certificate. It is the name most people search for, and you are in the right place.

What the laboratory analyses is the hair shaft: the strand itself, which holds a record of what was in the bloodstream while it grew. The follicle is the living root beneath the skin, and it is not the part that gets tested. More on how a sample is read is in the hair drug testing guide.

Hair gives a retrospective record measured in months — commonly one to six, and longer by arrangement — which is why it is preferred in legal settings.

A 3 cm sample from the crown reflects roughly three months; 6 cm roughly six. Growth varies between about 0.7 cm and 1.5 cm per month, so these are estimates rather than dates — a point any competent cross-examination will make, and one you should hear from us first.

Hair testing consolidates months of monitoring into one appointment — no repeat travel, time off work, or short-notice call-ins. It is also harder to tamper with.

Our price is a single figure covering all 95 substances. No per-drug surcharges for the categories other providers treat as add-ons.

Stated plainly, because it matters in court. A hair test measures how much of a substance is present, and that concentration is a genuine indicator of the extent of use — it is what separates abstinence from occasional, repeated and regular use on the threshold bands. What it will not do is turn that figure into a precise count.

• Not a dose, and not a tally. A high reading indicates regular use; it does not convert to a number of milligrams or a number of occasions. How much of a substance ends up in hair differs between people — melanin content, metabolism and cosmetic treatment all shift the figure — so identical use can produce different levels in two donors. The bands describe a pattern, not an arithmetic.
• Not an exact date or time. Segmental testing narrows use to roughly a month-long window, not to a particular day.
• Not prescribed versus illicit, without further context — though the metabolite profile often points strongly one way.
• Not the last week or two. That hair has not yet grown above the scalp.

Where those are the point in issue, they need a toxicologist's interpretation rather than a certificate. See our expert medico-legal service.