Drug Testing News from Drugwar.com

Drug Testing News

Drawing the Line on Drug Testing
by Ethan A. Nadelmann, IntellectualCapital.Com.
October 14, 1999

The case for testing employees, students and those applying for government benefits for drug use seems obvious. Drug testing can deter people from using illegal drugs. It can catch people who are breaking the law. And it can help detect those who are using drugs and make sure they are treated and/or punished. That logic has encouraged the massive expansion of drug testing throughout the United States -- first of employees, then of athletes, and now of students and many other categories of Americans.

Anheuser-Busch brewery workers fight drug test that uses hair
claim method is unproven.
Associated Press -- Anheuser-Busch brewery workers are fighting a drug test imposed recently that is designed to detect drug use up to three months prior.

The new test relies on a lock of hair, rather than a urine sample, which has led Teamsters Local 102 to file a civil rights lawsuit and one worker to shave all of his body hair. Testers used a fingernail clipping for his test instead the union said.

American Airlines Sued For Discriminatory Employment Practices From Airline Industry Information, Sept 28, 2000

American Airlines is being sued by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for allegedly discriminating against job applicants by asking illegal medical questions.

The lawsuit, filed by the EEOC on 26 September in Providence, Rhode Island, states that American Airlines refused to hire a qualified applicant for a ramp clerk and cabin cleaner position because of the person`s mental disability. The disability was apparently discovered during improper questioning by the airline`s medical department during a drug test.

Unions To Fight For Sacked
Non-Unionised Flight-Attendant
From Airline Industry Information, Jan 12, 2000

Two flights attendants unions have taken up the case of a non-unionised flight attendant at Delta Air Lines who was fired after the airline alleged she provided a `substitute` urine sample during a random drug test.

Yasuko Ishikawa has denied the allegation, saying that she was mostly vegetarian, weighed less than 100 pounds and had drunk a lot of water before the sample, which she maintains was legitimate. Ishikawa also said that a test she got done privately after the incident was also `dilute,` (showed low levels of creatinine, the metabolite found in urine) like the one taken by Delta Air Lines and did not show any signs of drugs.

Delta Drug Testing Debacle; Airline's Bad Drug Testing Policies Hurt Good Employees, Says Association of Flight Attendants.
AFA Demands Reinstatement of Unjustly Fired Flight Attendants

From PR Newswire, April 7, 2000 -- The Association of Flight Attendants, AFL-CIO, urged Delta Air Lines CEO Leo Mullin today to fix the airline's drug testing program which has resulted in the firing of flight attendants who did not test positive for drug use.

"We support the idea of a drug free workplace, but we also believe in fairness," said Patricia Friend, president of the Association of Flight Attendants. "The results of recent tests call into question Delta's drug testing program. Delta should bring back all those who were fired while it makes the changes needed to restore the flight attendants faith in the integrity of the testing process."

True Test For Ecstacy
by Lee Condon, printed in The Advocate, Oct 10, 2000

Ecstasy users who happen to be in the job market have new reason to beware.

A new hair drug test being used by many companies in preemployment screenings can detect the popular party drug. It also detects marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and PCP in hair samples up to 90 days after usage, according to Psychemedics Corp., which is marketing the test.

Legal Issues Of Drug Testing:True Test For Ecstacy
Basic concern: Is it against constitutional rights to privacy to implement drug testing?
Legal case Ben Capua et al. vs. City of Plainsfield, 1986.

Surprise building lockdowns for drug testing continued until all firefighters had been testing. 16 firefighters were then notified as testing positive and summarily terminated without severance pay, any appeal, and were charged with "commission of a criminal act."

Highest Court To Study Hospital's Role In Arresting Drug Users
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court, tackling a dispute over women's privacy, said Monday it will decide whether public hospitals can test pregnant patients for drug use and tell police who tested positive. The court must determine whether a South Carolina hospital's policy aimed at detecting pregnant women who use crack cocaine violates the Constitution's protections against unreasonable searches.

Getting High On Drug Testing
by Rita Risser

At the beginning of the 90's, there was no clear guidance on the law of drug testing, especially in California. Today, that's changed. The law is clear. Applying it is another matter. Two particularly difficult questions arise when an employer implements drug testing...

Patchy Justice: Is a new drug test too error prone?
by Vince Beiser (Mother Jones, Sept, 2000)

When Al Gore announced this summer that he favors testing every prisoner and parolee in the nation for drugs, executives at PharmChem Laboratories had cause for celebration. The Silicon Valley company produces a Band-Aid-like patch that monitors sweat for traces of illegal substances, a device already used
in thousands of parole, probation, and child custody cases nationwide. The testing proposed by Gore could provide PharmChem with a captive market of millions.

Drug Testing and Labor Productivity
By Edward Shepard and Thomas Clifton

The use of pre-employment and random drug testing by companies in the United States has grown rapidly during the past decade. This paper provides statistical evidence about the economic effects of drug testing programs by applying a production function model to a test sample of 63 firms within the computer and communications equipment industries in the US economy. The sample of firms comes from several SIC code areas that comprise a portion of the "high tech" industries in the economy. An economic production function model is specified and estimated for a test industry using cross-sectional firm-level data on the presence and type of drug testing programs, combined with financial data on companies available through COMPUSTAT.

Unreasonable Suspicion
by Karen J. Gould

The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act - better known as the welfare reform law, authorized states to impose mandatory drug testing on welfare recipients. So far, only one state is actively trying to do so: my home state of Michigan. A law passed by the state legislature in 1999 requires welfare recipients to submit to urine tests. Welfare applicants who refuse the testing would be denied benefits, and current welfare recipients who refuse the test would have their benefits terminated.

Urine Tester Falsifies Test Results
A urine tester has been jailed for falsifying truck drivers' drug-test results, Department of Transportation Inspector General Kenneth Mead reports. Sherrie L. Kaneaster, who owned and operated a DOT-approved drug-testing facility, was sentenced to six months in jail and three years probation in a federal court in Portland, Ore., for providing false results on drug tests required by the Federal Highway Administration. Kaneaster had pleaded guilty to making false statements.

From Traffic World, August 2, 1999

Oral Drug Testing Information
(AMEX:LFP - news) said on Tuesday it expects to launch in May a new device, using technology originally developed by the Navy to detect biological weapons, for testing drugs and alcohol in a saliva sample.

``Our test is noninvasive and automatic. It enables emergency medical technicians, paramedics or nurses to quickly test, with a high degree of sensitivity, for drugs and alcohol,'' Linda Masterson, the company's chief executive officer, said at a Roth Capital Partners Conference being held here.

Hallalujah! She Stamps My Hand!
I'm standing outside the federal prison on October 14, 2000 reading the following notice presented to me by prison officials:

Employee Wins For Firing After Refusing Drug Test
The courts have held in the past that sending employees for drug tests may be permitted when the employer has reasonable suspicion that they are under the influence of drugs at work. A recent case has held that employers must be able to prove such reasonable suspicion existed at the time of the event.

Drug Testing in the Workplace
An American Civil Liberties Union FAQ
There was a time in the United States when your business was also your boss's business. At the turn of the century, company snooping was pervasive and privacy almost nonexistent. Your boss had the right to know who you lived with, what you drank, whether you went to church, or to what political groups you belonged.

No Piss Tests for Politicians
Court Rules - Teachers and Welfare Recipients Aren't So Lucky
NEW ORLEANS - - It's unconstitutional for Louisiana to require random drug tests from elected officials, a federal appeals court ruled in late December.
The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling striking down the 1997 law, calling it a "well-crafted opinion."
May 2000

Drug Testing: How Far Will It Go?
One of the more intrusive aspects of marijuana prohibition in the last decade has been the phenomenon of drug-testing anything with a pulse.
Lately, though, the scope of drug-testing efforts has become even more outrageous. State governments in Michigan, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Louisiana have ascended from petty thugs to maniacal super villains in their attempts at indirect mind control.

By Scott Colvin. TAKEN FROM HIGH TIMES - May, 2000 Issue.

Delta Airlines Employees "substituting urine samples
In the last year more than 15 airline employees at Delta Airlines were terminated for allegedly "substituting" their urine samples. One flight attendant in Portland, Oregon has made her fight public and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Atlanta Constitution, and many talk and radio shows. Her name is Yasuko Ishikawa, a vegetarian, 95 lb, Japanese woman. She is not a drug user, yet she was terminated after a random drug test came back stating that she had failed to comply with drug testing procedures and that her sample was substituted. They determined that her sample was "substituted" because during LABONE, inc's validity testing, her specimen was considered "not consistent with normal human urine."

Paul McCartney MBE becomes Sir Paul McCartney MBE
Paul McCartney MBE becomes Sir Paul McCartney MBE following an investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace. New album 'Flaming Pie', with initial hit singles 'The World Tonight' and 'Young Boy' (both of which also feature in the hit comedy movie 'Father's Day'), is a massive worldwide hit.

Paul McCartney & His Band on The Run
Timothy White interviewed Paul McCartney, formerly of the Beatles, for a book and developed it into a radio program called "McCartney: The First 20 Years." He asked the songwriter to explain his song "Band on the Run," on the album of the same name.
by Jack Herer

Drug Test Results In Suicide
In Atlantic City, New Jersey police officer, home on disability since May and in constant pain from a back injury, was selected at random for a drug test under a new "zero tolerance" departmental policy.
03/21/2000

Your Urine, Please
.... Today, it's the corporate class that seems transfixed by the predictive powers of piss...
"The Progressive" March, 2000 Issue

Mother Loses Newborn Son Over Drug Test "Mistake"
A California woman, Noel Lujan, who was given a sedative during labor lost custody of her newborn son and other children for three months when her baby, Daniel, failed a drug test.
March/April 2000

Hair testing's color blind
The popularity of so-called hair testing to detect drug use is skyrocketing nationwide ... But with the increased popularity comes new controversy over ... its possible bias against people with dark hair.
By Leslie Kean & Dennis Bernstein - 12/06/1999

Drugs of abuse
The aims of the drug screen are to detect the presence of frequently abused drugs in the urine of human subjects. .... It is not expected that the results of such drug tests will be used as evidence against the patient in court.
By Ed Uthman - 11/16/1999

Detection times
Detection times of drugs in urine. Information provided by a local (USA) drug screening laboratory
10/17/1999

Hemp-urinalysis 'myth' probed
A hefty Kentucky dinner of hemp-fed beef washed down with hemp-brewed beer will in no wise endanger the diner's employment prospects ...
10/06/1999

Questions to ask before you get tested
Even if you end up peeing for them like a good boy or girl, this is a way you can make them think about what they're doing, without appearing to be filthy lowlife drug-using scum.
09/07/1999

Medication and substances causing false positives
...a study of 161 prescription and over the counter medications showed that 65 of them produced false positive results in the most widely administered urine test.
07/15/1999

Effectiveness of laboratory drug testing
Urine tests are unreliable. The public is told that they are scientific. But in operation they can't stand up to scrutiny.
06/26/1999

Types of screens being used to test for drugs
EMIT This is the most widely used test by employers because of its low cost. .... The Syva company [manifacturer] itself recommends a more refined GC/MS test to confirm positive results.
05/24/1999

Big brother and hair follicle drug testing
When... warden for Pennsylvania's newly built Pike County prison began hiring correctional officers..., he insisted that they all take hair-follicle tests for drug use.
By Stephen Witt - 05/07/1999

Hair follicle drug testing
Chaparral Steel Co. was dissatisfied with its employee drug testing program. Urinalysis revealed only if drugs had been used within days of the test -- and there was always a concern about cheating.
04/15/1999

Drug testing and hemp products
Drug testing poses a major potential problem for the hemp food industry. In 1996 an employee who had eaten a Seedy Sweetie snack [made using pressed hempseed] failed a drug test for marijuana.
04/05/1999

On the time of the war on drugs
Legend has it that in the five-thousand year history of marijuana, only one death has ever been attributed to the plant: Two smugglers were flying low over Floridian farmland...
By Richard Cusick - 02/06/1999

How to piss and pass drug testing
Washing your system - How much water and for how long?
01/12/1999

Drug testing - is it worth it?
Testing for drugs in the work-place has become a very hot issue on USENET lately. Several groups have lengthy threads discussing the morality and/or civil liberties...
By Brian S. Julin - 12/11/1998

Privacy in America: workplace drug testing
Today, in some industries, taking a drug test is as routine as filling out a job application .... despite the fact that random drug testing is unfair, often inaccurate...
12/09/1998

Drug testing in the workplace
Because illicit drug use is incorrectly assumed to reflect rebellious attitudes that make an employee hard to discipline, through urine tests "many managers feel they can infer answers to questions about workers’ personalities and beliefs that cannot be asked openly in interviews."
11/05/1998

Civic duty & civil commitment of drug testing
Traditionally, criminal proceedings are directed against past behavior. A failed drug patient, however, can be prosecuted because authorities are dissatisfied with prospects for the person’s future behavior.
10/22/1998

Urine testing history
If you’d take its advocates seriously, you’d believe that drug tests were intended solely for diagnostic, health-related reasons - - and not for persecuting substance users or intimidating workers.
10/06/1998

Follow the money of drug testing
Drug tests do not detect impairment or performance, just the minute traces of drug-related metabolites in one’s body. The American Civil Liberties Union decries this practice as a violation of the right to privacy, presumption of innocence, and freedom from unreasonable searches and self-incrimination.
09/30/1998

Criminal proceedings and drug testing
In the 1700's the state’s dominance over an individual in criminal proceedings was regarded as so overpowering that the Fifth Amendment guaranteed that citizens would not have to incriminate themselves through compelled testimony. In contrast, drug warriors argue...
By Richard Lawrence Miller - 09/05/1998

Suppression and repression in drug testing
Throughout history, Americans have held the legal tradition that one could not give up one’s Constitutional rights - - and if someone was stripped of these protections, then he or she was being victimized.
By Jack Herer - 08/02/1998

Urinalysis pissing it all away
The dream of every crude economist is to be able to account for labor (humans) as methodically as machines, raw materials, overhead, etc. .... In the never-ending struggle to hammer human-round-pegs into corporate- square-holes, meet the ... piss police.
By K. K. Campbell - 07/14/1998

Transportation industries and drug testing
Amtrak’s Colonial, with 616 passengers aboard, ... piled into a string of Conrail freight engines... .... Federal investigators said they were focusing on two possible reasons why the trains ended up on the same track...
By Dan Baum - 06/10/1998

Peeing For The Court
Robert K. Sanford was president of Adapt, Inc., a company that provides court-ordered urinalyses for people convicted on drug charges, and his business practices demonstrate just how adaptable he was. For as little as $500, clients could have their test results "adapted" to suit their particular needs. In most cases, clients chose to have evidence of all drug use eliminated.

Why My School District May NOT Drug Test My Child
1. Drug testing students violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees "due process of law".

2. Drug-testing students reverses the legal principle that we are to be considered innocent until proven guilty. Drug-testing tells kids they are guilty until they prove their innocence by peeing into a plastic cup.

3. Drug-testing students violates the Fourth Amendment which guarantees that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons , houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause." A search for incriminating evidence is "unreasonable" when there is no probable cause. I defy anyone to tell me there is probable cause for drug-testing my son or for sending a drug-sniffing dog to inspect his locker.

Drug Test Inaccuracies: Lucy In The Sky With A Bladder Infection
You've heard me speak out against drug testing. The most basic reason - even if we get past the privacy issues and issues about whether it has any effect on discouraging drug use - is that many of them are just plain inaccurate. Yet, people have lost their jobs due to false positives that turn up in a drug screen. And incidentally, they might never find out why.

The latest example comes from the Forensic Drug Abuse Advisor, and it concerns how one common test can give a false positive for the hallucinogen LSD. In fact, over an 18-month period when 1,256 urine samples were tested for drugs from the Wyoming Reproductive Health Study Program, 39 were found to be positive for LSD. Upon reevaluation, it was found that 38 of these were false positives.

While reanalyzing the samples, Microgenics Corp. discovered that women with bladder infections could end up with false positive results. The manufacturer realized this after E. coli bacteria grew out of two of the disputed urine samples.

DEA Regulations On Hemp
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) published regulations regarding industrial hemp products in the Federal Register on October 9, 2001 which were effective immediately. Without any compelling reason or the required public notice and comment period, the DEA issued an interpretive rule banning hemp seed and oil food products that contain any amount of trace residual THC. DEA also issued an interim rule exempting hemp bodycare and fiber products from DEA control.

After extensive meetings and discussions with most of the major hemp food companies, it has become clear that according to the official Health Canada testing protocol, none of these hemp food companies have any detectable THC in their products. These companies feel they comply with the DEA's regulations as written and wish to reassure distributors, retailers and customers that their nutritious hemp foods remain perfectly legal for resale and consumption.

However, since the DEA has not specified a detection protocol and a corresponding de minimus limit of detection, the Hemp Industries Association (HIA) and supporting plaintiffs are filing for a "Stay Pending Review" in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. If granted, the stay would have the effect of invalidating the interpretive rule and force the DEA into formal rule-making process and allow an opportunity for public notice and comment before any rule would take effect.

Can Some Hemp Products Trigger a Positive Drug Test?
Ingesting legal hemp seed oil may cause an individual to test positive for THC metabolites on a standard urine drug screen, according to three separate reports published in The Journal of Analytical Toxicology.

Results of a study conducted by ARUP Laboratories in Salt lake City last August indicate that consumption of cold-pressed hemp seed oil consistent with the manufacturer's recommendation is "sufficient to cause a positive finding for cannabinoid metabolites in a workplace urine drug testing procedure designed to detect marijuana use." The study noted that test subjects reported no pharmacological effects after consuming hemp seed oil.

Federal Drug Testing Programs In Jeopardy
The drug testing industry has been able to successfully downplay its accuracy problems in the past, but their complete inability to differentiate the ingestion of products that contain hemp seasoning, hemp-seeds, or hemp-seed oil from marijuana use is the biggest threat ever posed to the industry. The widespread availability of hemp containing products that cause a false positive, including everything from hemp-seed oil nutritional supplements to hemp-seed candy, cookies, cheese, bread, cooking oil, and general seasoning, puts the government drug testing programs in an utterly indefensible situation, according to Theodore Shults, MS, JD, Editor of the scientific substance abuse testing publication directed at physicians who administer drug tests, MRO Alert (published by the American Association of Medical Review Officers in Chapel Hill, NC). He states,"How can the government defend its mandatory drug testing programs while allowing the importation and distribution of hemp products that can cause a positive urinalysis? "

Junk Science Drove America To Drug Testing
In the 1950s, employers spooked by the Red Menace instituted mandatory loyalty oaths, forcing employees to forswear any ties to communism. In the 1990s, the drug scourge had replaced communism as the great looming societal threat, and the pee-in-a-cup employee drug screen became de rigueur.

But the march of time has a way of exposing baseless hysteria. Just as the loyalty oath has been shelved as an overblown reaction to the Cold War, so soon will the drug test become an abandoned relic of the war on drugs.

While drug testing exploded during the past decade, with the rate of major U.S. companies engaging in it rising from 21 percent in 1987 to 81 percent in 1996, there are compelling reasons why drug testing in corporate America has plateaued and may be starting to decline. Primary among them is that the need for massive drug screening was based on junk science to begin with, a fact that is becoming self-evident to cost-conscious human resources departments.

Drug Testing Takes A Hit
New Studies Question Value of Screening For Illegal Substances

Drug testing on the job, once a controversial practice at a few companies, has become so pervasive that it now seems as common as filling out a W-4 form or punching a time clock.

Want that high-profile new job at a Fortune 200 company? Here's your cup, there's the bathroom. Give us a urine sample, then we'll talk stock options, pal.

Want to stay employed in that construction job? Better watch what you ingest over the weekend because you may be randomly selected to give a sample before firing up the bulldozer Monday morning.

In 1986, only 21.5 percent of companies tested employees, according to a survey by the American Management Association. By 1996, 81 percent did.

Chicago Cops Face Inaccurate, Discriminatory Drug Test
The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois today sent out information to the Chicago Police Department, police unions, the City Council and the media about a new drug-test being used by the Chicago Police Department that has been deemed unreliable by the Food & Drug Administration and two other national scientific organizations.

The test is being touted as more accurate, easier to use and able to detect drug use in the past three-to-five months - rather than the few days or weeks that a urine test can. However, the company that makes it refuses to divulge failure rates and the technology is considered so unproven that no objective study has ever determined how well it actually works.

Manufactured by Psychemedics Corp. of Cambridge, Mass., it uses hair instead of urine to determine whether or not an individual used illegal drugs and it has been labeled unreliable by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the Society of Forensic Toxicologists (SOFT) and the FDA. All three have stated that the test should not used as a basis for employment decisions and the FDA has even gone so far as to suggest that marketing the test may be illegal.

Municipal Drug Testing On the Way Out in Washington State
In the wake of a Washington state appeals court ruling that overturned Seattle's pre-employment drug testing of most city employees, major cities across the state are ending or severely narrowing their municipal drug testing policies.

The ruling was the latest in a three-year-old lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that challenged the city of Seattle's 1996 decision to implement broad, pre-employment drug testing of city workers. A King County (Seattle) Superior Court judge had upheld the policy in early 1999, after the city agreed to dramatically restrict the categories of workers who would face mandatory pre-employment testing.

Report Questions Value of Employer Drug Programs
WASHINGTON -- Only limited scientific evidence exists showing that employer programs to combat alcohol and drug abuse are effective, a panel of research and medical experts said in a report released Monday that questioned the billions of dollars being spent annually on such efforts.

"Workplace-oriented interventions cannot solve society's problems with alcohol and other drugs," said the report by a committee from the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine. The findings, however, were immediately challenged by advocates of corporate involvement in efforts to fight drug and alcohol problems.

The report noted that nearly $1.2 billion is being spent annually on workplace drug-testing programs alone. The committee cited a lack of thorough research into the relationship between testing programs and worker productivity. Studies that have been done often suffer from significant flaws, the report said.

The report raised special concerns about pre-employment drug testing, noting that job applicants have none of the safeguards that employees enjoy in dealing with the serious consequences of the test results.

School Drug Testing Headed for Supreme Court Again
The US Supreme Court agreed this week to hear a case that will allow it to refine its rules on what constitutes acceptable drug testing of high school students. In an Oregon case in 1995, the Supreme Court held that student athletes could be tested because drug use was found to be prevalent at the school in question. But since then, school districts around the country have attempted to expand student drug testing to include students involved in other extracurricular activities, students who drive cars to school, and, in some cases, random, suspicionless tests of all students.

By agreeing to hear the Oklahoma case, the Supreme Court has signaled that it is ready to revisit its 1995 ruling on drug testing. The court will rule on what circumstances justify the intrusion on individual students' rights posed by drug screening.

Drug Testing in House of Representatives Could Stir Lawsuits
WASHINGTON (June 1, 1997) -- Lawmakers who want their staff members and other Capitol Hill workers randomly tested for drugs could face a flurry of lawsuits because of prior court decisions affecting drug testing in the executive branch, the Hill reports. ''If there were a random drug testing program that included me, I would consider a lawsuit," Robert Raben, minority counsel to two House Judiciary subcommittees, told the newspaper. In interviews, several House aides who work on policy matters privately echoed him, though most declined to speak on the record.