Archive for the 'Drug Testing News' Category
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
Bronson. - Levy County’s public libraries are struggling to get books checked out or reshelved because retirees who usually handle many of those chores have balked at a requirement that they “pee in a cup” as part of a mandatory drug test for all county volunteers.
“It’s not like we are a high-risk group for coming in drunk or high or stoned or whatever,” said one volunteer. “This is just a common-sense issue - why are we spending tax money to test 75-year-old grandmothers for marijuana? We should be using that money to buy more books and computers.”
The situation has gotten to the point where the pool of 55 volunteers has dwindled to two and the number of hours worked by volunteers in the county’s five libraries plunged from 330 in September 2005 to 11 this September, according to county library records. None of the former volunteers contacted by The Sun wanted to be publicly identified in a story about drug-testing.
“A large part of the problem is how the test is administered - it is an affront to some people’s dignity, especially people who grew up in another generation,” said the county’s library director, Bonnie Tollefson.
Most of the volunteers are between the ages of 60 and 85. Under the county’s year-old contract with First Lab, all drug tests are done on urine samples that are collected in plastic cups while a lab employee stands within hearing distance of the person providing the sample. County officials said they realize that some people may find the test intrusive.
“We have a number of volunteers who are older, and I think about how my mother - who is 83 - would react to a test like this,” Tollefson said. “She would find it degrading, be totally offended and find it an affront to her dignity. Many of our volunteers feel the same way.”
Additionally, the volunteers were initially told they needed to drive to Gainesville to provide a urine sample at a specific medical laboratory.
To overcome the transportation concerns, the county arranged for the testing to be done at each of the county’s five public libraries later this month…
Karen Voyles, 2006, The Gainesville Sun
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Drug testing has become more and more popular throughout the world, with anestimated 85 percent of major companies testing to determine whether youare a user and a possible hazard to their company. Insurance agencies andcourts are also major drug testers.
Here are the four main types of drug tests:
Urine Test - The first and most test usually involves going into therestroom and filling up a cup with urine. They either use a test card forimmediate results or send away to a lab to get tested through asophisticated gas analyzer.
Hair Follicle Test - Hair testing is very accurate and can go back sixmonths or more, showing all of the toxins you used in a timeline. Shavingyour head will not get around this as they will use hair from other partsof your body. Shaving your entire body usually leaves you suspect.
Blood Test - Blood testing is usually performed for serious employmentpositions or when you are applying for insurance policies, an expensivetest that is not common.
Saliva Test - Also not common, it can only detect toxins used 3-4 daysprior. Insurance companies and law enforcement agencies use this methodmost often.
Richard Johnson, Market-Day.net
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There is little difference between a blood drug test, a urine drug test ora saliva drug test, which all look for very small concentrations ofcontaminates, called metabolites, used to determine which specific productshave been used.The body naturally stores metabolites in the fatty cells and fast-growingcells in your body.
Metabolites leach out into the blood over time and are expelled mostlythrough the urinary tract, but metabolites stay in the fat for differentperiods of time causing you to fail a drug test many weeks or months in thefuture.
Fat content, activity level and your metabolism all have a major impact onhow long chemicals can be detected in your system.
Hair is a fast growing tissue that stores metabolites. A hair follicle drugtest can detect metabolites for an extended period of time, as traceamounts of drug metabolites become entrapped in the core of the hair as itgrows out from the body.
Metabolite residues cannot be washed, bleached or flushed out of the hairfollicles and are stable over a long period of time. Hair fiber willproduce an accurate drug history for about 90-120 days, and it takesapproximately 5 days for drugs to show up in a person’s hair. Any hair canbe used for a hair follicle test.
Richard Johnson, Market-Day.net
drug test,
metabolites
Random drug testing of student athletes has become as routine as study hall and lunch at many high schools across the country. But this factory town outside Wichita is taking testing to the extreme.
It is instituting random drug screening for all middle and high school students participating in — or even just attending — any extracurricular activity. That includes sports, clubs, field trips, driver’s education, even school plays.
Those who don’t sign consent forms cannot attend games, go to school dances, join a club or so much as park their car on school property.
Administrators insist the district does not have a drug problem, and say the new policy — one of the toughest in the nation — is aimed at keeping it that way.
“We see this in the best interest of our students. We don’t see this is a punitive measure,” said Superintendent Tom Biggs.
Since the policy was enacted this school year, at least 425 students out of 600 high schoolers, and 215 of the 315 middle school students, have signed forms consenting to random urine tests for alcohol, tobacco and drugs. No one has been tested yet, and school officials don’t want to tip off students about when the first random drug test will be conducted.
The Associated Press
By Sarah Childress
Newsweek
It took Mike Peterson three years to find out that his 15-year-old son had a drug problem. He’d noticed that the once-charming A and B student with a love of Superman paraphernalia had become angry and withdrawn, and was in danger of flunking out of school. But his son repeatedly denied using drugs. Finally, at home in St. Clair, Mo., Peterson turned to the Internet, where he found a site that sold home drug-testing kits for parents. He told his son he wasn’t leaving the house until he turned over a urine sample. Peterson was stunned and hurt when his son tested positive for cocaine, marijuana and amphetamines. “He had a problem—a genuine problem,” Peterson says. “Thank God we caught it before he hit rock bottom.”
Officials at Winnisquam Regional Middle School will be offering parents more than spaghetti dinners and teacher meetings at an open house — they’ll also be passing out home drug testing kits.
Dave Tryon, the district’s substance abuse coordinator, said there will be enough urine testing kits at a Sept. 21 open house for families of all 430 students, if they wish to take them. Drug use at Winnisquam — which serves Tilton, Northfield and Sanbornton — isn’t higher than any other middle school, he said, adding that the point of the kits is to encourage parents to talk to their children about drugs.
He said the kits also may help kids refuse drugs.
Associated Press
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The NFL is talking with its players’ union about beefing up its testing program for performance-enhancing drugs with the changes possibly taking effect this season, according to a newspaper report. The changes could include more testing and increasing the number of banned substances, the New York Times reported Wednesday. “We are in the process of re-evaluation, trying to determine if more is better, if it’s the right time to add substances, to add more tests,” Harold Henderson, the league’s executive vice-president for labour relations, told the paper. “It might make sense to do some tweaking.” The NFL does approximately 10,000 tests for performance-enhancing drugs a year and there are about 2,000 players in the league. Players are randomly selected for testing and can be tested during the off-season. The NFL announced in June that it added amphetamines to the list of banned performance-enhancers starting this season. Amphetamines were previously listed as a “substance-abuse drug,” but are now in the same category as steroids and other enhancers that carry much stronger penalties. This season will serve as a transition year, where a first positive test would bring a warning and put a player into the drug program. But in 2007, amphetamines will be tested for on a regular basis. A first positive test will result in a four-game suspension, the same penalty now levied for positive steroids tests. In addition to the amphetamines change, the penalty for a second positive test for performance-enhancing drugs was increased from six to eight games. A third positive test still carries a one-year suspension.
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