[RobBob]

Idavisa,
I had some time today to do some further research. First, I am finding more risks and dangers of using bleach and hydrogen peroxide. They are very dangerous to mess around with. That said, I have found both a reason to be doubtful, and a reason to be hopeful, regarding the effectiveness of your method:

REASON TO BE DOUBTFUL:

According to Wikipedia's article for hydrogen peroxide:

NaOCl + H2O2 → O2 + NaCl + H2O

In other words, household bleach (sodium hypochlorite or NaOCl) plus hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) react to form oxygen bubbles (which quickly escape into the environment) and salt water.

There was a scientific paper published years ago which analyzed the effects of various treatments on the toxins found in hair. It looked at alkaline wave solutions, hair bleaching, dandruff shampoo, artificial sweat, etc., etc., and how they effected drug levels in the hair. As a proxy for artificial sweat, they used salt water! They found that it had very little effect on reducing the drug concentrations in hair - even after 20 hours! (Welch, M.J., Sniegoski, L.T., Allgood, Ch., and Habram, M., Hair Analysis For Drugs of Abuse: Evaluation of Analytical Methods, Environmental Issues, and Development of Reference Materials, J. Anal. Toxicology, 17, 389, 1993).

If the bleach and peroxide react to form salt water, and if salt water has been shown to have little effect, then I am doubtful.

REASON TO BE HOPEFUL:

The same research cited above (Welch, et al), found that the greatest decrease in cocaine concentration was observed with 30% hydrogen peroxide and an alkaline wave solution. This reduced the drug concentration found in the hair by 80% to 95%. Bleach is an alkaline (base/basic) solution, so PERHAPS it would act on the hair in a manner similar to the alkaline wave solution (???) -- assuming that it isnt first converted into saltwater??? And would the concentrated hydrogen peroxide poison you or burn you? I am working on getting a complete copy of the Welch paper. It may take weeks to get it. If successful, I will provide more details then.

There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding all of this. After looking at a half-dozen research papers, you often end up with more questions than you started with. Some treatments (such as propylene glycol) are rumored to eliminate THC and its metabolites, but not necessarily other drugs. Organic solvents and certain diluted acids are used by some testing labs to extract drugs/metabolites from hair overnight, but at temperatures that would burn you within seconds if the hair was still attached to your head. Maybe it would also work at tolerable temperatures -- or maybe it wouldnt. Who knows? Would the diluted acid burn your skin? Not sure. Would the chemicals poison you? Who knows? But the greatness of the internet is that we can learn from each other.

Ideally, we would someday have two sets of hair tests done... the same people before and after the Idavisa method... to test its effectiveness.

Rob