Testing It Up

A school district in Wichita, Kansas will drop its random drug testing policy to focus more on substance abuse prevention and education programs.

Maize school district leaders decided earlier this month to discontinue drug testing students who want to join extracurricular activities.

Under the policy, students in 7th grade and onwards should submit to a possible drug test if they want to join school-sponsored activities, such as sports, band, school dances, graduation ceremonies and even parking in the school lot.

But apart from being expensive, it appears that not all students are partial in having to go through the procedure.

Karen McDermott, spokeswoman for Maize schools, told The Wichita Eagle that the decision to drop the school district’s drug testing policy was based on the feedback they got from the school district’s administration, as well as from the students.

McDermott added that Maize spent more than $31,000 on drug testing since it began in 2007, but only four students tested positive. She said the program was financed through grant funds when it started. However, when the funding began to deplete, they were forced to get the money from the district’s general fund.

Maize, though, will still continue to drug test students suspected of drug use and utilize drug-sniffing dogs to search for illegal substances in lockers and school parking lots. McDermott also mentioned that part of Maize’s substance abuse prevention plans for next year is to train teachers and staff members to spot signs of drug and alcohol abuse.

Over 600 drug and alcohol testing professionals gathered in Orlando, FL April 9 – 12 for the Drug and Alcohol Testing Industry Association (DATIA) 2013 Annual Conference.

The conference featured 65 exhibitors from the drug and alcohol testing industry, as well as educational sessions on various topics related to drug and alcohol testing, including: Certified Professional Collector Trainer Training; Advanced Drug and Alcohol Testing Program Management; Developing an Effective Supervisor Training Program and Alternative Specimen Collection Training.

Many big names in alcohol and drug testing spoke at the conference.

Barry Sample of Quest Diagnostics Inc. gave a 25 year retrospective of the Quest Diagnostics Drug Testing Index, examining long and short – term drug testing trends based upon insights derived from more than 100 million tests performed by Quest Diagnostics over the past 25 years.

Quest publishes the Drug Testing Index as a public service for government, media and industry and it has been considered a benchmark for national drug trends since 1988.

Doug Mullen of Airlines for America talked about aviation testing outside of the U.S. and the implications of the Federal Aviation Administration’s proposed regulations that will require some repair station employees outside of the U.S. to be drug and alcohol tested.

A three-member panel with Brian Drew of Nationwide Medical Review, Patricio Labatut of Global Partners Ltd. and Kirk Hardy of The International Drug Detection Agency explored how international drug testing programs in Latin America and Oceania are advancing and the issues which they are currently dealing with, as well as a discussion about iDATIA, DATIA’s international drug free workplace program accreditation.

Also on the subject of international drug testing, Bill Current, with WFC and Associates, talked about how drug testing in countries outside the U.S. is exploding and what laws, health codes, privacy regulations, labor agreements, and best practice standards U.S.-based drug testing providers need to know about to cash in on this burgeoning market.

The DATIA 2013 Annual Conference also featured presentations on drugged driving, alcohol testing, marijuana legalization, DNA testing and implementing a student drug testing policy, among others.

Welfare drug testing proposals are everywhere these days, so it’s refreshing to finally be hearing about a drug testing bill for politicians.

In Texas, Senator Eddie Lucio, Jr. (D-Brownsville) sponsored SB 612 which requires drug testing people who want to run for public office. The bill is now scheduled for a hearing by the State Affairs Committee at the Texas State Capitol on Monday, April 15, according to ValleyCentral.

Under SB 612, those who want to run for public office will need to sign a waiver of confidentiality and submit themselves to a drug test. They are required to submit a controlled substance screening assessment and drug test to the Texas Ethics Commission. The commission would then announce the drug test results 45 days prior the primary election or general election if there is no primary.

Politicians who refuse to sign the waiver and undergo a drug test will be disqualified from running for public office. Cost of the procedure will be shouldered by politicians who want their name on the ballot.

The bill though would not affect politicians who are already in office, but they will still need to undergo drug screening if they were to run for re-election.

An increasing number of job seekers in the U.S. are risking their chances of landing a job because of failed drug tests.

In the latest Drug Testing Index™ (DTI) data released by Quest Diagnostics, positive results for pre-employment urine drug screening in the country’s general workforce rose by 5.7 percent in the first six months of 2012 than in all of 2011. Marijuana continues to be the most commonly detected drug, followed by amphetamines.

“The uptick in U.S. general workforce pre-employment data suggests that employers should be mindful of illicit drug use among prospective employees,” Dr. Barry Sample, Director of Science and Technology for Quest Diagnostics Employer Solutions, said in a news release. “These findings align with recent news reports citing some employers facing increasing drug positives when recruiting new workers.”

In January, The Wall Street Journal cited another Quest Diagnostics report that showed many U.S. employers are facing the challenge of finding potential employees because many are failing their drug tests. The problem was particularly worrisome in parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.

But while pre-employment positive rates have increased, positive results for random drug testing were down by 5.8 percent. In the federally mandated, safety-sensitive workforce, positivity rates in pre-employment urine drug screening remained unchanged from 2011 through the first half of 2012.

Positive results for cocaine oral fluid tests had also dropped by 14.6 percent from January to June 2012, compared to 2011.

A couple of high-profile court cases in Canada may determine if drug testing will become more prevalent in that country.

Irving Pulp and Paper in the province of New Brunswick wants employees at its mill to undergo random alcohol tests, as reported by CBC News, but the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP) is opposed to this.

This case reached the Supreme Court of Canada on Dec. 7 and a ruling has yet to be handed down.

The other case involves Suncor Energy, which is trying to implement random drug and alcohol testing for both employees and contractors at its oil plant near Fort McMurray, Alberta. The CEP is also opposed to Suncor’s proposed drug testing plans, citing invasion of privacy as its main reason for opposition.

An arbitration hearing between the company and the union is scheduled for Jan. 2 (postponed from Dec. 10).

Both Irving Pulp and Paper and Suncor have stated that workplace safety is the main goal for wanting to implement drug testing at their respective facilities.

Birch Miller, a lawyer in Calgary, Alberta who specializes in this area of law, has said that these two cases will determine “whether random alcohol and drug testing policies have a future in Canada.”

While a few industries in Canada do have regular drug testing, it is not nearly as prevalent as in the United States.

Britney Spears’ self-styled manager took the stand on Tuesday and told jurors that Britney Spears shaved her head for fear that she’d be subjected to a hair drug test to detect history of drug use.

Sam Lutfi is suing Britney for breach of contract. He said Britney offered him 15% of her $800,000-per-month income to become her manager, but did not receive a dime during months of service, the nydailynews.com reports.

In his testimony, Lutfi claimed the singer “relapsed” on drugs in Sept. 2007. He said he once brought drug-sniffing dogs into her mansion and found a bag of white powder that he flushed down the toilet. His lawyer previously told the jurors that the powder was crystal meth.

“She told me that she had wanted to get clean but that she was struggling with it,” Lutfi said on the stand. “Britney was involved in a wicked child custody battle. She told me someone told her they could scientifically test her hair for history of drug use, so she shaved it all off.”

Aside from Britney, Lutfi was also suing her father for physical assault and her mother for defamation after she called him a “Svengali” and “predator” in her book “Through the Storm.”

Lawmakers in the Missouri House passed a bill – SB1007 – that will subject welfare recipients to drug testing, as reported by St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Juana Summers. The bill was sponsored by Republican Senator Tom Dempsey, and though it has successfully hurdled the House it will still be subjected to yet another vote in the Senate.

The underlying bill originally dealt only with reimbursements related to Missouri HealthNet, Medicare Part B and Supplementary Medical Insurance, according to the report. The drug testing language was added to the bill by a House Committee.

Missouri provides cash assistance to more than a hundred thousand people through a federal aid program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. The program is designed to assist parents with low incomes to provide for their children. Proponents of the bill point out the need for drug testing for its recipients to ensure that the financial assistance provided is not used to sustain drug habits.

Those who oppose the legislation argue, however, that such a practice may be detrimental to the children it is supposed to help; it is suggested that the development of expanded drug treatment programs may be more beneficial. In addition, conducting drug testing for these welfare recipients will entail cash outlay to the tune of millions of dollars, an expense that the state of Missouri can most certainly do without as the Legislature tries to deal with a budget crunch.

The bill does not only target welfare recipients, however. It also includes language that will entail drug testing for elected officials of the state every two years; refusing to take the test will be taken as an admission of guilt.

HRM Report, a site that provides the latest in human resource management news, shared with its readers information on drug and substance abuse testing in the workplace.

Most employers find illegal drug abuse a cause for concern, but drugs are by no means the only substance that employees abuse. This brings to light the importance of implementing a substance abuse testing package that covers other substances that, when abused, can affect the productivity and efficiency of an employee, such as steroids, nicotine and alcohol.

It is, however, important that employers ensure that they have covered every detail before launching a drug testing program, in order to prevent lawsuits by disgruntled and disadvantaged employees, which can be costly.

The feature shares the following to employers who intend to set up a substance abuse testing program: what things should be avoided and what the trends in workplace substance abuse testing are.

Employers designing a drug testing program should ensure that it is not designed for a specific group of “problematic employees”. It is also advised that employers do not simply put a substance testing program in place because all other companies have one.

Substances that a comprehensive testing program should cover include prescription drugs, nicotine, alcohol and steroids. Various methods should also be used, including hair follicle and oral fluid drug testing.

HRM Report readers are being offered an opportunity by TestCountry to download a substance abuse testing package that includes the following:
•    Drug Testing Policy Stock Template ($150 Value)
•    30 Minutes of Phone Time with a Drug Testing Expert for your questions ($100 Value)
•    10 Things to Consider Before You Start or Redesign Your Workplace Drug Testing Policy
•    7 Places Employees Hide Drugs in the Workplace
•    3 Obstacles to Overcome when Implementing Workplace Drug Testing
•    Most Popular Drug Test Cheating Methods

A new bill that is being passed to the Nebraska state legislature is asking that recipients of welfare benefits be tested for drug use to determine if welfare benefits should be given. The idea had been discussed by several states last year but prohibitive aspects such as cost and court challenges were enough to cause the idea to be dropped. Senator Charlie Janssen has developed a bill that would help develop a plan to test welfare recipients and applicants for drugs.  Positive drug test results would result in a one year loss of benefits.

Janssen feels that the move could help prove that benefits were truly acting as a help up rather than a hand out.

“When a taxpayer gives assistance to somebody, it’s assistance so they can get back up on their feet,” Janssen said. “It’s kind of a slap in the face to the taxpayers when they say, ‘We’re going to get up on our feet while we’re doing drugs.’”

There’s a good chance that the bill won’t be passed this year( largely due to the high cost such a program would take to get started) but Janssen feels that the move could help save the state money over time.

“This is part of our budget woes … paying people who aren’t truly trying to rehabilitate themselves and get off the state welfare system,” he said. “But the short-term cost right now is probably going to be overwhelming.”

Drug testing welfare recipients is a hotly debated issue and with good reason. Many of those who want to enact laws that require this type of testing cite reasons that assume that drug use is consistent and wide spread among those on welfare. While many of those who are receiving these benefits feel that their rights would be violated not because they are users but precisely because they aren’t and never have been.

Many welfare programs ask participants to provide many forms of personal information and many hours of personal time to job search programs that have proven ineffective in the face of the current economic troubles. Already feeling invaded upon many of those who receive benefits feel that drug testing would be the last straw in a list of hurdles they’ve already faced to prove they’re worthy of receiving benefits in their time of need.

After a small amount of cocaine was found in a space shuttle hangar at NASA’s Florida Spaceport the organization began an investigation. The drug was found as residue in an abandoned plastic bag at the Orbiter Processing Facility a restricted zone for shuttle workers only at Discovery’s hangar at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A shuttle worker found it outside a bathroom and immediately reported the finding to security after which an on-site test found it to be cocaine. A follow-up test confirmed the finding.

“This is a rare and isolated incident, and I’m disappointed that it happened, but it should not detract from the outstanding work that is being done by a dedicated team on a daily basis,” Bob Cabana, a former astronaut and director of Kennedy Space Center, said in a statement. “We are conducting an investigation and working with center security and law enforcement officials to get to the bottom of it.”

The maintenance hangar is a restricted zone which requires special access badges for any workers to enter. Roughly 200 NASA employees and contractors have access to the area, and all have been asked to complete drug tests since Wednesday. Thus far there haven’t been any indications of workers being inebriated while at work. The consequences of such actions are severe, according to NASA officials.

“NASA, as well as all of our contractors, has a zero-tolerance policy for illegal drug use,” Beutel said. “This is being taken very seriously.”

The cocaine find is being investigated on two fronts. One is through the drug itself and the other is looking for clues as to how it ended up in the shuttle hangar. Security in these areas is taken very seriously because it raises issues of safety working on the spacecraft, as well as to ensure the safety and quality of work on the space vehicles. Officials said that extensive efforts are being made to ensure Discovery remains safe to fly its next spaceflight. Its slated to take off from the Kennedy Space Center in March when it will be doing a mission to deliver supplies to the International Space Station. Endeavour is due to launch on Feb. 7. NASA plans to fly five final shuttle missions this year before retiring its three-orbiter fleet.

Florida Drug Screening