Podcast: Georgia mom reunited with kids after drug test controversy
‘Stolen Sobriety’ uncovered a history of concerns with the reliability of hair follicle testing and formal complaints of false positives from Georgia labs.
ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - A Cherokee County mother, Daydrianna Hefner, was separated from her two daughters for nearly three years due to alleged drug use that triggered intervention from Georgia DFCS.
Despite insisting she had been sober for almost three years when she first spoke to Atlanta News First Investigates in 2024, Hefner’s official DFCS-funded hair follicle drug tests returned positive results that she believed were inaccurate.
In response, Hefner invested her own money to get independent third-party drug testing—which included specialized confirmation testing, a method that can distinguish between legal medications and illicit drugs. This testing repeatedly showed she had no illicit drug present, whereas DFCS’s subcontracted labs had not used this specialized analysis, which critics argue may reduce false positives.
Her efforts followed a year‑long investigative series by Atlanta News First titled “Stolen Sobriety”, which unveiled multiple cases of false positives and unreliability among some Georgia drug testing labs.
This is Daydrianna’s story.
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