Today it is fairly common for many companies and federal agencies to drug test their employees. Through a common urinalysis test, it can be determined if the employee has taken any one of several drugs.

This test of a person’s urine not only detects if they have taken drugs, it also detects what type of drugs were taken.Drug tests detect the presence of any drugs or their metabolites.

Metabolites are the products left behind in the body when it has broken down a substance so it can be elimi­nated. Drug metabolites are like fingerprints of the drug that was taken. Cocaine produces a cocaine metabolite,opiates produce an opiate metabolite, alcohol produces an alcohol metabolite and so on.

Most drugs and alcohol are metabolized, or broken down, in the liver but all tissues in the body will break down drugs or other foreign substances for elimination.Drugs and metabolites leave the body through urine, feces and sweat but they are not fully eliminated. Since drugs dissolve better in oil than water, they have a natural affinity for fats. Therefore any drug residues or metabolites that are not eliminated have a natural attraction to fat cells and so tend to be stored in one’s fat.

As an example, the active chemical in marijuana, THC,is so fat-soluble that, when consumed, most of it rapidly leaves the bloodstream and lodges in the fatty tissues of the body. From there, it slowly moves back into the blood­stream over a period of weeks or even longer.

Only recently have scientists discovered that fat is actually a vital organ that produces hormones that affect our moods, energy levels and immunity. Chronic use of drugs or alcohol have been shown to disrupt this function.This disruption is one of the factors that causes cravings, as the body attempts to correct the disturbance by craving what it lacks or a similar substance, such as the drugs that originally caused the disruption.

In the late 1970s, American author and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard made the revolutionary discovery that drug metabolites and other toxins that were stored in the fat cells had the continuing effect of locking addicts in their addictions, and that eliminating these stored deposits was a key to full recovery. He went on to develop a fast and simple method of extracting those deposits, resulting in improved mental and physical health. This discovery was a critical step forward in the effort to resolve drug cravings.