Ephedra and Drug Testing

Unfortunately, there have been some cases where ephedra has been known to cause false positives in drug tests which screen for amphetamines. However, this does not always happen, and is dependant on the level of sensitivity of the drug test.

Amphetamines are a type of drug which chemically is classified as a synthetic stimulant – originally, it was used to suppress the appetite, control weight, and treat disorders including narcolepsy and ADHD.

However, after many decades of reported abuse, the FDA decided to ban amphetamines in 1959 (at the time taken in the form of an inhaler), and limited their use to that of prescriptions only. Nevertheless, the illegal usage and abuse of amphetamines is still very common, and is often included in many drug screening tests.

Any supplement or drug can effectively be tested for; however, employers requiring a drug test are not usually interested in ephedra specifically, since ephedra itself is not dangerous. However, some drug tests, if they are extremely sensitive, can result in what’s called a “false positive”.

This essentially means that the drug test results come back as positive for a certain drug even though the person does not currently have that drug in their system. This is actually rather common – for example, eating a poppy seed muffin can produce a false-positive for opioid abuse, which includes heroin.

Ephedra can sometimes produce a false-positive for amphetamines, but many times it will not – again, it depends on the sensitivity of the test.