Archive for the 'Drug Testing News' Category
Scotland. There is no chance of a drugfree Scotland in the future, according to a former police chief. The grim warning came from Tom Wood, former deputy chief constable, now chairman of the Scotish Association of Alcohol and Drug Action teams (ADATs).
He said drug policy in the 1980 had failed. And he added: “No one here will live to see a drug-free Scotland and a drug-free Europe. Because the truth is that many people, large sections of our community, quite recreationally and normally use alcohol and drugs and do it as a matter of choice and a matter of life style and never come to our attention. So if we vilify all drugs and alcohol, then we will completely disengage that section of the community.”
He said that despite spending more than 100 million pounds in the last ten years, the Government have failed to come up with a “coherent, integrated or successful strategy on either alcohol or drugs”. “We have failed to get in touch with a whole generation of young people and make them aware about the proper use and danger of both drugs and alcohol.”
He told the Edinburgh conference that alcohol and drugs had to be looked at in the context of other social issues.
The DailyRecord
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A tearful Tara Connor thanked Donald Trump for a second chance after her alleged under-age drinking and use of cocaine. Many pageant watchers say that this proves that Donald has a heart, but more importantly the publicity could actually help Tara Connors and raise the profile of the organization.
Miss USA is considered a role model, and her conduct must reflect that. Pageant co-owner Donald Trump announced that Tara would be able to keep her crown. “She made some very bad choices,” Trump said at a conference. The beauty queen agreed to rehab and drugtesting.
Connor said she is going to get the needed treatment. She said that she is going to walk out of rehab the best Miss USA ever. “I’ve always been a believer in second chances,” Trump told the news conference. Tara Connor turned 21 on Monday. She said that “In no way did I think it would be possible for a second chance to be given to me.” She then turned to trump and said “You’ll never know what this means to me, and I swear I will not let you down.”
MSNBC.com
Cocaine,
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donald trump,
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tara connor
The city of Huntington has altered its random drug-testing policy to ensure that employees take the test on their scheduled day. Personnel Director Sherry Lewis said Wednesday that the city’s safety director, Bill Perdue, now escorts all employees to the testing facility. The procedure was implemented earlier this month.
Prior to the change, supervisors were in charge of notifying employees on the day they were scheduled to take a drug test. However, there were several instances in which employees did not take the drug test until one or two days after they were notified, Lewis said.
The city has a zero-tolerance drug and alcohol policy. Failure to take a drug test is considered a “refusal to test” and also is grounds for immediate dismissal. No employees have been terminated for failing to take a drug test on their scheduled day, she said.
“There were numerous cases in which there was an apparent lack of communication between the employee and their supervisor,” she said. “I would receive the testing list and notify the employees’ supervisors, but the supervisors would fail to notify the employees. That was the biggest problem we were running into.”
Lewis said the “lack of communication” was occurring in several departments, not one in particular. “We feel this new policy is the most effective way to address this”. “It’s also the most fair and equitable way for employees.”
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The Ladies Professional Golf Association commissioner Carolyn Bivens said she has no knowledge of drug use among tour players. The tour still plans to start checking. The LPGA Tour said Wednesday it will begin testing players for performance-enhancing drugs in 2008, a move that makes it the first major golf tour to announce a drugtesting program. Specifics of the testing plan will be worked up over the next 6 to 9 months. The tour plans to announce the program details, including testing methods and banned substances, in the second half of the 2007 season.
Next year, the LPGA will contract with the National Center for Drug Free Sport to develop an anti-doping policy and prepare for a 2008 launch. “While we have no evidence to date that any of our players are using performance-enhancing drugs, we need to have a very clear policy and a program in place,” Bivens said. “We want to educate our members and we also want to promote fair and equitable competition.”
AP via Yahoo!News
2008,
anti doping policy,
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IAAF says it will increase its drug testing program for 2007. The announcement came Wednesday, on the final day of the IAAF Council meeting in Monte Carlo. Track and field’s world governing body will conduct between 2200 and 2300 out-of-competition tests next year, and between 1300 and 1400 in-competition.
That is an increase from 1222 in-competition and 1085 out-of-competition tests this year. 39 doping violations were discovered in the 2006 tests.
On another topic, the 2008 WorldCross Country Championships have been awarded to Edinburgh, Scotland. The 2007 championships will be held in Kenya.
VOA Sports
competition,
doping,
drug testing program,
iaaf
UK News. School pupils could be tested for drugs as part of a new government study to determine whether testing can affect youngsters’ behaviour, attendance and academic achievements, according to reports.
It is claimed that ministers will ask schools across England to take part in a six-month long drug testing trial from January.
The planned trial follows recent research which suggested that about a quarter of all children have tried drugs by the time they reach the age of 15.
Organisers of the pilot scheme claim that the random drugs tests are relatively easy to conduct and can boost the performance of pupils, who can refuse to be tested.
The voluntary tests reportedly involve pupils providing a sample of saliva which is then tested for traces of drugs such as cannabis, amphetamines and cocaine, with the results available after about 20 minutes.
Speaking to the BBC, former head teacher and government consultant on the planned pilot project, Peter Walker said: ‘It doesn’t cause any harm whatsoever, a child still has a right to say no, indeed so does a parent, it doesn’t disrupt the running of the school, it’s relatively cheap to do and brings great benefits like improved performances.’
However, the BBC claims that the government’s own drugs information panel has expressed concern about the use of drug testing in schools, citing Vivienne Edwards from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs as warning that such tests can undermine pupil-teacher relationships and should not be used a result of ‘complex’ technical and ethical issues surrounding the issue.
Such a move is also likely to be criticised by drugs charities including DrugScope, which warned in May that random drug testing was not proven to reduce drug use, following reports that Kent county council were considering introducing such tests in secondary schools.
Commenting at the time, DrugScope chief executive Martin Barnes said: ‘DrugScope is concerned at the gathering momentum and profile being given to random drug testing in schools when there is still insufficient evidence to support its introduction.
‘Random drug testing has the potential to undermine relationships between pupils and teachers, could add to problems of truancy and exclusion and does not tackle the underlying factors which can lead to problem drug use, such as underachievement, unstable parenting and poverty,’ he added.
BBC News
amphetamines,
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misuse of drugs,
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Central Unified is the latest school district to offer parents the chance to sign-up their kids for voluntary drug testing. Central’s school board approved the program last night for its high school students.
Students whose parents agree to put them in the program will be tested on a random basis for substances, including marijuana and alcohol. The school district’s leaders believe the voluntary drug tests will play a role in keeping at least some kids off of drugs.
They say, “We need this program to save lives to build relationships with students and their families. Because there’s drugs out there in the streets and if we can do anything to prevent students from using drugs it s really worth it. ”
Results of the drug tests will be sent to the parents, not the school. The voluntary drug testing program takes effect with the start of the next school year.
alcohol,
drug testing in schools,
marijuana drug test,
marijuana testing,
school drug testing
The Alberta Federation of Labour has updated its policy on workplace drug and alcohol testing to clearly state that it opposes mandatory drug testing of employees.
AFL president Gil McGowan said the federation’s last Policy Statement on Workplace Drug and Alcohol Testing was passed in 2001 and that it was time for an update.
“In short, the policy clearly opposes all forms of employer-imposed drug and alcohol testing,” said McGowan. “It does so for two reasons. First, it is an unreasonable invasion of workers’ privacy and in many cases contravenes the human rights code.”
He added that drug and alcohol testing doesn’t make workplaces safer. He pointed to Alberta government research that shows testing cannot be shown to reduce work-related injuries.
“Our belief is that employers are using drug testing as a method of exerting control over their workforce, not to make workplaces safer,” he said.
The policy offers information and alternatives to workers and unions when an employer tries to impose mandatory testing and urges unions to push back against employers implementing testing programs.
“We intend on informing our members fully of what employers can and cannot do legally,” said McGowan.
The policy opposes the use of pre-employment testing, random testing and post-incident testing. It also offers practical alternatives to testing which are shown to be more effective at making workplaces safer without contravening workers’ rights.
hrreporter.com
alcohol testing,
drug testing,
drug testing in the workplace,
employee drug testing,
mandatory testing,
post incident testing,
pre employment testing,
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The International Labour Office (ILO) is contending that controversy still surrounds workplace drug testing (WDT), which is prescribed by some as an effective way of managing substance abuse at work.In its last month’s publication of, Bringing decent work into focus, the ILO stated that several issues on the matter ranged from questions of privacy to social responsibility and the role and potential responsibility of employers and private enterprise. The drug and alcohol testing in the workplace is beset by questions such as whether test results are truly indicative of substance abuse on the job, or if they show activities undertaken outside of the workplace. The first argument, the ILO said that favour of WDT pertains most to safety-critical rofessions in industries such as medicine, transport and construction where impaired senses and judgement can have extreme consequences. Proponents of WDT argued that employers have a duty of care to provide a safe working environment. At the same time, opponents of the value of WDT said that it can show only the use, rather than the impact on performance, and it cannot distinguish between use and abuse. Workplace drug testing also raised several considerations including the confidentiality of personal information and whether an employer has a right to know what employees do outside of working hours. The report stated that according to the 2005 Annual Report of the United Nations Office Of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 200 million working-age people between 15 and 64, or five per cent of the global population, used illicit drugs at least once during 2005. It was discovered that cannabis use is most prevalent in the islands of the Pacific, followed by North America and Africa. Almost two-thirds of the amphetamine and methamphetamine users of the world reside in Asia. And two-thirds of the 14 million cocaine users world-wide live in America, according to the UNODC report.
Tags: amphetamine, employee drug testing, methamphetamine, privacy, substance abuse, workplace, workplace drug testing
