Testing It Up

Many employers are reluctant to put substance abuse testing as part of their workplace policies because they are confident of their own means of spotting users among their employees. However, being able to spot a user is usually difficult unless the employee in question has already sunk to the deep lows of his or her substance abuse.

How can employers detect if their employees are abusing drugs or alcohol? At the start, this will manifest in increased tardiness and absence from work, in missed deadlines, and in various errors in doing work due to lack of attention or better judgment. Later on, these problems will escalate to lack of dependability, repeated disappearance from work, decreased level of impulse control, or legal and financial problems. It may also come to a point when work becomes a hindrance in the mind of the user, and he or she will accede to taking a drug test just so he or she can get out of work and continue using without any disturbance.

For full version of this article, please visit “Most Common Effects of Substance Abuse on Job Performance at the Workplace“.

This is one for the books. A driving instructor from Salem was charged with a DUI after it was determined that he was drunk while giving driving lessons to two teenagers in Ipswich in 2007.

Daniel Winsky, 53, is probably the first person who is convicted for drunk driving while seated in the passenger seat. He was sentenced to 18 months of probation and will lose his driver’s license for a period of one year. Winsky was also asked by Newburyport District Court Judge Peter Doyle to attend a driver-safety class entitled “State Courts against Road Rage”, a brain injury awareness program. He will also need to submit himself to random drug and alcohol testing to be administered by a probation officer and he faces $2,000 in fines and fees.

A concerned convenience store customer called the attention of police after noticing that Winsky, who reeked of alcohol and was slurring his words while speaking inside the convenience store, got into a driving school vehicle. The police pulled the driving school car over, which was being driven by one of the teenagers. When police subjected Winsky to a sobriety test, it was determined that his judgment was impaired; a portable Breathanalyzer test showed his blood alcohol level to be at .23, although this result was not presented as evidence to the jurors since their use is not deemed permissible in Massachusetts courts.

The police did not arrest him outright, though, due to the unique situation that he was in. He was technically seated at the passenger side of the vehicle. However, after further study, it was concluded that the fact that he had a brake and a steering wheel on his side of the car – ideally to correct any misjudgment by the student – made him the person who was in control of the car. In my opinion, simply being the only person in the vehicle who is legally permitted to drive makes you the person in control. This fact was then used as the reason for bringing charges against Winsky.

It is probably a question that is out of the question. When it comes to the welfare of our children, we will want only the best and the safest for them. A substance abuser, whether habitual or occasional, will certainly be the last person on our list to whom we will leave our children for the most part of the day.

More and more states and school districts are trying to make sure that does not happen, as there is an increasing number that are lobbying for the implementation of random drug testing for teachers. Missouri is already studying the possibility. Hawaii has already made a decision, but they were unable to implement the policy due to opposition from the teacher’s union.

Is a teacher really any different from a police officer or an athlete, people who are currently being subjected to random drug testing? Parents would be more inclined to support the same practice for teachers. For one, they should not be unlike everyone else. There are talks about violation of teachers’ rights. Are they really any different from those who are already required to take drug tests?

No matter what we perceive people to be, they can surprise us with the things that they are capable of. True, teachers are professionals who go through a stringent screening process with equally stringent background checks. But sometimes, when people are faced with unusual circumstances, they are quite capable of equally unusual things. There are teachers who have been arrested for drug-related cases. Besides, someone who is not a substance abuser in the first place need not worry about getting caught. So, why the fuss?

Kentucky and Tennessee have been randomly testing teachers for quite sometime, and it seems to be working out well for them. It should be the welfare of the children that comes first as far as education is concerned. Just as in all other cases, there must be a neutral ground or a point of compromise that can be reached that is agreeable to everyone, teachers and lawmakers – and parents – alike.

In South Florida, the union of Plantation’s city police is petitioning for an amendment to the rules governing drug testing for police officers. They have no issues against random drug testing for police officers, but are specifically concerned about testing specific individuals on the basis of tips from informants.

Officers who are asked to take drug tests due to informant tips are basically accused of illicit drug use, and that alone will tarnish their records. This is why the union would like to ask a change to their contracts such that they can choose not to undergo such tests without knowing their accusers. The current set-up leaves officers vulnerable to nuisance accusers who simply want to do away with them for a few days or to those who want to damage their records.

This will be a dilemma considering that the city has rather stringent protection policies for confidential informants. Changing this will basically make law enforcers somewhat above the law. The Union may be protecting one of their own at the expense of its informers.

While it may be true that it may be unfair for a law-abiding police officer to undergo such humiliation despite his innocence, we simply have to admit that the police force is not exactly a perfect organization. Sometimes, the most notorious criminals can come from the very organization that is supposed to prosecute such individuals. Changing policies such as this may very well allow erring police officers to get away with whatever it is they are doing.

There are, after all, many ways to resolve an issue, and this might be one problem that will need to have an alternative solution. Negotiations for the petition are scheduled to start next month, so there is still time for Plantation to figure out a way to protect both its police and their confidential sources.

Enough is enough. After weeks and weeks of moving back and forth and gaining a lot of media attention, the world of baseball is saying, ‘Hey, it’s time to move on’.

No less than Donald Fehr, the Executive Director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, declared that the steroid era has come to pass. He made a statement to that effect last Monday during the spring training tour in Florida. And he is not alone; he was but voicing out the sentiments of everyone about leaving what is past in the past and moving forward. Maybe it is, indeed, time to leave A-Rod alone and stop pestering him about steroids and his relationship with a certain trainer from who-knows-when all the way to his native Dominican Republic.

The spring games, after all, are about to begin. The grass is turning green in sunny Florida and Arizona, and its time to focus more on the game than on the controversies surrounding it. No one has the time to talk steroids now. It is time to play ball, and aim for that pennant!

Now that the big guy himself has declared the steroid era as over, the expectation is that everyone should rest easy and stop thinking about who is and who isn’t. It may not be that easy, though, for everyone to move on from this big blow. They had, after all, insisted in the beginning that nothing was afoot. Which was why testing, and random testing at that, did not happen until 2002. And it took three years as well as a lot of pressure from Washington before consequences were spelled and handed out to those who were caught “red-handed”.

And it certainly will not be easy for the fans to forget. Even if A-Rod has said that he has been clean since 2003, his credibility is still shrinking as the days go by.

Testing in baseball may be better this time around, but it is doubtful that it is already good enough. There are simply not enough tests, random or otherwise. Baseball has been tainted, and no matter what anyone will say, people will be looking at its 103 stars with a shadow of doubt.

School authorities checked the records of the bus drivers involved in the accident that killed a 10-year-old boy while he was going to school last Friday morning. This revealed that one of the bus drivers has been fired by Lawrence Township Schools in 1997 for failing a drug test. She was hired by Washington Township Schools in 2001.

Christopher Beltz was dropped off in the middle of the parking lot of Spring Mill Elementary School by bus driver Ingeborg Willis, 44, the driver with a termination record in another district due to illegal drugs. The boy had to run between parked cars to get to school. While on his way, a second bus struck him and killed him on the spot. Sally Fontaine, 48, drove the second bus.

Since it was Fontaine’s bus that hit Beltz, she was the only one subjected to a blood test at the scene of the accident. Both drivers are on paid leave while the investigation is ongoing. It still is not clear if Willis’ previous drug test will affect her employment status.

District officials are now reviewing the records of all other drivers to see any previous involvement with drug or alcohol abuse. Also, drop-offs were managed better on the following Monday. Buses pulled up as close to the curbside as possible. Officials are also checking on their bus procedures to ensure that nothing similar ever happens. Current township protocol requires bus drivers to be tested for drug and alcohol abuse upon application and at random after hiring.

A bank account to assist Christopher’s family with funeral expenses was set up by the school. Donations to the Christopher Michael Beltz Memorial Fund may be made at any Chase Bank.

The Philippines has started its program on random drug testing on high school students this month. They have identified the process of testing, the schools included and how the students were chosen, although all of these have been kept away from the public to guarantee the credibility as well as confidentiality of the tests.

After the students, the country’s police officers are next in line. The Philippine National Police (PNP) has announced that they are now working on having 25% of the force tested for drugs within the year. There are around 125,000 current members of the PNP. The Department will not be releasing a schedule of drug tests. This is to ensure that police officers cannot make special preparations and must, therefore, stay always clean from illegal substances.

PNP spokesman Chief Superintendent Nicanor Bartolome said that a total of 25,134 PNP personnel underwent drug testing last year. While the PNP did not release how many of those tested had positive results, Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno has stressed that the government will not tolerate drug use among uniformed personnel. Those found to be positive on drugs will be dismissed from service.

The national government is also looking on having members of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) and the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) undergo the same testing. The Philippines has taken a fiercer battle against drugs with its President recently appointing herself as the new anti-drug czar. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has seen the issue on illegal drugs a matter of national concern and has decided to be on top of it.

While some of the country’s prominent political figures have expressed disagreement on the President’s assumption of a new role, there is no stopping the Philippine government from waging war against illegal drugs.

The Department of Education (DepEd) in the Philippines is all set for a very busy February, which marks the beginning of random drug testing for students in the secondary and tertiary levels across the country. Last month, the Department issued an announcement regarding the implementation of the tests despite opposition raised by the country’s Commission on Human Rights.

The start of the tests has caused some concerns among students and their parents, who fear an invasion of their respective privacies. Thelma Santos, the Assistant Secretary for Special Concerns, has given the assurance that all testing will be conducted discreetly and its results kept highly confidential, revealed only to the student who underwent the test and his or her parents. This confidentiality extends to the other government agencies that will participate in the effort – the Department of Health, the Dangerous Drugs Board and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency all do not have the authority to divulge the results of tests.

Testing was supposed to start last Monday, February 2, but was delayed to give way to efforts to address students’ and parents’ concerns. Additional discussions explaining the sensitivity and purpose of the tests to students and their parents as well as assuring them of the discretion at which the tests will be conducted were done across the country. With that out of the way, the tests began on Wednesday.

Even the list of schools that were to participate in the random drug testing was kept private by DepEd Secretary Jesli Lapus. He did, however, reveal that there were fifteen schools that were included in the tests in the country’s capital Metro Manila. Of the fifteen, eight of them are private schools while seven are public secondary schools.

Testing personnel will have kits that will detect marijuana and methamphetamine hydrochloride – known more by its popular name, shabu – which are the two most commonly abused illegal substances among the Filipino youth.

The state of Texas continues its fight against illegal drugs by passing bills related to drug testing. The bill on drug testing for recipients of financial assistance, discussed in an ealier post, was actually passed alongside another bill focused on drug testing of professional education employees.

Entitled ‘An Act Relating to Drug Testing of Professional Education Employees of Public School Districts’, the bill is to be ‘enacted by the legislature of the state of Texas’, and begins by stating an amendment that was made to the state’s Education Code. Set to be implemented on September 1, 2009, the same day that drug testing for financial assistance recipients will be implemented, the act has eight stipulations and includes five conditions where professional education employees should undergo drug and substance abuse testing.

In a nutshell, the bill stipulates that a public school district should set up a drug testing policy for its professional employees. A model drug testing policy will be set up and may be adopted by the state’s school districts, and should be set up such that the safety of students as well as the rights of employees are ensured and upheld.

Testing will include excessive alcohol consumption and use of marijuana and other controlled substances. At least one scheduled test will be required for all prospective professional employees while authorized and unannounced random drug testing will be performed annually on at least 10% of the professional employees of the district.

If an applicant fails the test, he will not be hired. If an existing employee fails the test, the school district has the option to either terminate the employee or have the employee undergo a rehabilitation program. If the district chooses to have the employee undergo rehabilitation, the employee should pass weekly drug testing. Otherwise, he or she may be terminated.

Passive smoking or environmental tobacco smoke — these are some of the terms that also mean second-hand smoke.  Health advocates stress that the smoke that burns off the end of a cigar or cigarette contains more dangerous chemicals and substances than the one inhaled by the smoker, which poses a more hazardous threat to even the healthiest non-smoker.

Those who never had a cigarette may feel safe in not doing so. However, they could also be in harm’s way.  Whenever they get exposed to second-hand smoke on a regular basis, their bodies also absorb high levels of nicotine, tar and other dangerous substances, just as smokers do.

With this, non-smokers can also increase their chances of developing smoking-related disorders such as emphysema, lung cancer, heart disease, asthma and other ear, nasal and throat infections just by exposing themselves to second-hand smoke.

Occupations that are at high risk of receiving the harmful effects of second-hand smoke include those who work in the service industry, like restaurant servers, bartenders and waiters.  The smoke-filled environments they work in puts them at higher risk of developing respiratory infections.

Pregnant women who frequent areas where smokers converge are at risk of inhaling harmful substances, and this puts their babies at risk as well.

Today, there are a handful of second-hand smoke testing kits available, which allow for on-site testing for second-hand smoke exposure. These products can be used at home, in the office or at school, with the results quickly provided in minutes.

Second-hand smoke testing kits allow users to exactly establish second-hand smoke exposure by determining the levels of cotinine, which is a metabolite of nicotine, in urine.