HOUSTON – Synthetic urine is legally bought and sold in Texas despite its widely known use as a way to try to fraudulently pass a drug screening.
"People use this for drug tests sometimes," said a convenience store clerk.
One clerk at a local head shop admitted that he personally used synthetic urine to beat a drug test.
"These work great though," the clerk said. "I used to be in aviation. I've used it, like, three times."
The website of the brand of synthetic urine KPRC 2's cameras saw for sale most often, Magnum Detox advertises the synthetic urine as "the way out" of a drug test "without betraying your secret."
Each box of synthetic urine contains a squeeze bottle of yellow liquid with an attached thermometer strip, a rubber band and a hand warmer.
ARCPoint Labs of San Antonio determined the synthetic urine did pass a standard drug test.
But Kelly Broome, owner of the lab, said he could detect problems with the look of the sample prior to administering the test.
"There are some things that we're looking for at all times that we don't want everybody to know we're doing," Broome said. "But there are things that we're looking for so that our tests can't be beaten."
Based on the way the synthetic urine looked, Broome administered an adulterant test to determine if the sample is the real thing, and the synthetic urine failed.
"It's not within the parameters for human urine," Broome said.
Most often, an adulterant test would be done at the request of an employer if the lab tells the employer they have suspicions about the sample.
"There are lots of reasons to be concerned," said state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer (D) of San Antonio, who wasn't aware of the sale of synthetic urine in Texas. "Something like this is the type of topic that we might be able to insert into a piece of legislation that's already been filed."
HB 1212 already addressed the issue of synthetic substances and Fischer added an amendment to the bill, addressing synthetic urine.
"That allowed me then to also talk about synthetic urine and make it very clear in the Health and Safety Code that it's illegal to use synthetic urine for the purposes of taking a drug test," said Fischer. "Then I took it a step further and said it's also illegal to manufacture or distribute or intend to deliver synthetic urine when you know it's being used to circumvent a drug test."
The bill has passed out of the full House and is now in the Senate for review. You can follow the progress of the bill here.