Final answer:
Hair testing is suited for detecting chronic alcohol or drug use over a longer period, providing a timeline of substance use. While urine and blood tests can detect recent use, hair tests can analyze consumption over months.
Step-by-step explanation:
Tests on which type of specimen can detect chronic alcohol or drug use include urine, blood, and hair tests. However, among these, hair testing is particularly well-suited for detecting chronic alcohol or drug use over a longer period. Each type of test has a specific detection window with urine and blood being more suited for recent use detection. In contrary, a hair test can provide a timeline of alcohol or drug consumption over months, as drugs and their metabolites are deposited in hair as it grows.
While urine tests are commonly used and can involve the use of test strips which can detect the presence of specific substances such as glucose, or hormones like cortisol, they are typically limited to short-term detection. Blood tests can measure substances such as alcohol, where the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) is used to determine intoxication levels. However, hair tests can yield a more extended detection window, allowing for analysis of substance use habits over time as hair grows approximately 1cm per month, and drugs can be detected as long as the hair exists.