Failing drug tests for MDMA when drinking kava
False positive results on “dip” style urinary drug tests.
Hello kava lovers, today’s fact of the day comes from a rather recent article in the Journal of Analytical Toxicology. This article discusses Kava’s interference with amphetamine-type drug tests. If you’ve been a member of reddit r/kava or kavaforums for some time, inevitably you’ve seen reports of people testing positive for MDMA when drinking kava. It occurs only on “dip” style drug urinary analysis. We have not seen this issue in lab tests. We have been stumped and have been chocking it up with old or faulty drug tests. As of recently, there is now clinical evidence supporting this. In this study, three different individuals who drank kava regularly tested positive. They used gas chromatography–mass spectrometry to analyze the three samples, and found no traces of amphetamine or amphetamine metabolites. They also tested the kava powder and found no amphetamines. Researchers spiked blank urine samples with kava extracts, and all of them tested positive for amphetamine-type substances, confirming this issue.
Samples that caused false positives contained Kavain and DHK. The researchers postulate that kava drinkers who consume kava regularly and in larger quantities are more likely to cause these results. They tested users of kava at social amounts (not daily drinking and lesser amounts consumed) and found that they would test negative. The study concludes that other factors may be relevant as well, including the kava root source, means of preparation and concentration of kavain drink or paste, and individual variation in the rate of metabolism [1].
This is the first study undertaken on this topic. Regarding this, we have created a form to report issues in this area if you have experienced them. If you or someone you may know has had a false positive drug test resulted from what they feel is kava, please visit the following page to submit your experience to help us better understand what is going on.
https://kavapedia.com/survey/false-positives
Currently, and thanks to the member information, we have found one specific drug test that gives false positives when drinking kava. Avoid the Easy@Home brand if youare a regular kava drinker.
Easy@Home 10-Panel Instant Drug Test Kit
[1] H Madhavaram, T Patel, C Kyle, Kavain Interference with Amphetamine Immunoassay, Journal of Analytical Toxicology, , bkaa178, https://doi.org/10.1093/jat/bkaa178