Inaccurate Methadone test!?

It is very uncommon for a standard NIDA 5 drug panel to include methadone, although it does include opiates. Methadone will not show up positive as an opiate unless the value is very high However, if this was a screening test, both the test requesting agency and you have an obligation to have a GC.MS (gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy) test to confirm the RIA screening test. The GC/MS is extremely specific and will differentiate methadone from other opiates. If that second, confirmational test was not performed, you should ask that it be done or have the sample sent to another lab for GC/MS testing. If the tests were already subject to confirmational analysis, then you either thought you were taking a different opiate but it was actually methadone.