MarijuanaNews.com : Hair Testing Provider Cheers USA Today’s Call For Switch To Hair Tests

Posted February 16, 2000
See
ACLU
Report Urges End To Workplace Drug Tests;
Government Says 70 Percent Of Drug Users Are Fully Employed
NORML Weekly Press Release
and
Hair Testing
Has One Great “Advantage”: It Catches More Blacks Than Whites (Well,
That’s How This Started.)
and
Hair
Testing Draws Fire For Inaccuracy As More African Americans Disqualified

From USA Today
February 15, 2000
http://usatoday.com
Outdated drug tests put public at risk
See

href=”http://marijuananews.com/marijuananews/cowan/a_remarkable_article_comparing_t.htm”>A
Remarkable Article Comparing The Effects of Marijuana and Alcohol On Driving
(MarijuanaNews note: USA Today has been better than most papers in
both their reporting and editorial comments, but they dropped the ball on this. Hair
testing will detect all drug use for a long period – the life of the hair tested, and
consequently will detect other drugs as readily as marijuana. That may be one reason that
the government opposes them.
Hair tests are widely used in the gambling
industry, which is well known for its opposition to addiction and concern about the well
being of its patrons. (That is why they give their customers free drinks and make it easy
for people to gamble around the clock, by not having any clocks. Also
Anheuser-Busch uses them.)
See

href=”http://marijuananews.com/marijuananews/cowan/brewers_of_budweiser_hair.htm”>Brewers Of
Budweiser Hair-Test Employees To Be Sure
That They Are Not Using Any Drugs Less Dangerous Than The One They Make.
John Drabick was no fool. In 1998, he abstained from his heroin habit long
enough to pass a urine test and get a job - as a grade-school bus driver. Luckily, he was
caught. On the way to pick up some children while high on heroin, he crashed the bus into
an off-duty police officer’s car.

Less lucky were 22 passengers aboard a tourist bus in New Orleans who were
killed last Mother’s Day when their driver, Frank Bedell, high on marijuana, crashed into
an abutment. Bedell had passed his pre-employment urine test despite a long history of
drug abuse.
(MarijuanaNews note: This is now a part of the prohibitionist
mythology.)
See
New
Orleans Police Say That It Wasn’t The Benadryl, Or The Heart Condition,
Or The Kidney Failure, Or The Dehydration, Or The “Extremely Low Blood
Pressure.”
No, It Was The Marijuana That Caused The Bus Accident!
But That Contradicts The FDA — See The Punchline At The End
COLOR=”#008000″>

Such threats to public safety led the Department of Transportation in December
to issue new rules to toughen its screening for illicit drugs. But even the stricter
testing standards DOT endorses won’t catch all cheaters.

What DOT and other safety agencies really need are better drug tests. And on
that score the agency that sets standards for drug testing has been dragging its feet for
seven years.

More than 8 million people in safety-sensitive transportation jobs are subject
to drug testing under federal standards set by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration. Yet the tests are easy to beat. For pre-employment drug tests,
such as those defeated by Bedell and Drabick, all applicants need to do is abstain for a
few days.

To evade random urinalysis tests, drug users buy adulterants that mask the
drugs they use. That has forced labs to do costly additional testing to uncover
adulterants. But labs can’t screen out clean human urine provided by friends or sold over
the Internet and heated to body temperature using special devices.

None of these failings, though, has moved the government to speed development
of standards for other drug-testing technologies. Officials say such technologies are
unproven and could be unfair. After seven years of investigation, they say the earliest
standards for new drug tests can be implemented is 2003.

Yet, one such technology, hair testing, has been around for a decade. It’s used
by the Federal Reserve, more than a thousand private businesses and an increasing number
of police agencies.

(MarijuanaNews note: I am told that there are a number of shampoos on the
market that will eliminate all traces of drugs. PLEASE DO NOT WRITE ME ASKING TO RECOMMEND
THEM. Instead see www.norml.org
and www.marijuana.com
)

The test is harder to cheat because it provides a longer view of drug behavior,
up to three months, making it ideal for pre-employment testing. New York City’s police
department detected five times the number of drug users among its recruits with hair tests
than it did with urine tests, and at 30 times the rate among probationary officers. After
switching to hair tests last year, Boston’s police department reported finding 23 drug
users on its force that urinalysis had missed.

If John Drabick had taken a hair test, he never would have gotten behind the
wheel of a school bus. If Frank Bedell had taken one, 22 people would be alive today.

Instead, safety took a back seat to the bureaucratic caution that protects drug
users at public expense.

Agencies developing better tests
By Nelba Chavez
Nelba Chavez is administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration.
Effective workplace drug testing is an essential part of our national strategy
to reduce substance abuse and ensure public safety at work, at play, in travel and in our
homes.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, along with the
Department of Transportation, other government agencies and private industry, are working
together to develop new and improved methods for workplace drug testing. To balance public
health and safety with protection for individual rights, the government also must make
sure these tests are accurate, reliable, correctly interpreted and fair.

Rigorous federal drug-testing standards are crucial for the 25 million workers
tested each year under the federal Health and Human Services mandatory guidelines,
including 8.3 million people in jobs regulated by DOT. They are also important for the
30,000 drug-testing collection sites and the 18,000 medical review officers who are
focused on getting every workplace drug test right.

Would-be cheaters have found it increasingly difficult to succeed because of
improvements made to our screening tools. For example, in the past, there were different
opinions among forensic laboratory professionals on what standards to use in testing urine
specimens for adulteration. In 1998, working with DOT to eliminate this confusion, we
issued standard criteria for determining and reporting the intentional use of a substance
specifically to defeat a drug test.

Today, all 68 of our certified laboratories use these guidelines and perform
adulteration/dilution testing. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration and DOT are committed to making it even more difficult for cheaters in the
future by quickly identifying new adulterants as soon as they appear and by validating new
testing technologies.

Careful research is under way to improve testing technologies and identify
alternative specimens, including hair, saliva, sweat and on-site screening devices.
Recommendations for these tests are already under development. Our
goal is ultimately to convince all Americans to avoid illicit drugs, and for current drug
users to stop or seek treatment - if they want to get or keep a job.

To comment

If you would like to comment on editorials, columns or other topics in USA
TODAY, or on any subjects important to you: Send e-mail for letters to the editor to
HREF=”mailto:editor@usatoday.com”>editor@usatoday.com. Please include
daytime phone numbers so letters may be verified. Letters and articles submitted to USA
TODAY may be published or distributed in print, electronic or other forms. To submit
articles for consideration in The Forum, click
HREF=”http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/submit.htm”>here for more
details.

Psychemedics Comments on Editorial Arguing for the Swift Government Support of
Hair Testing for Drugs of Abuse

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb. 15 /PRNewswire/ — Psychemedics Corporation (Amex: PMD), the
world’s largest provider of hair testing for drugs of abuse,
commented on an editorial in the February 15, 2000 issue of “USA TODAY” that
questions the continued exclusive government support of urine testing while
“government resists using more foolproof methods.”

The editorial cites two incidents, one in which a school bus driver passed a urine test
for drugs then, while high on heroin according to the article, crashed his school bus into
an off-duty police officer’s car. In another, a tourist bus in New Orleans crashed last
Mother’s Day killing 22 passengers. The driver was high on marijuana after having passed a
pre-employment urine drug test despite having a long history of drug use, according to
“USA TODAY”.

The problem, says the editorial, is that urine tests for drugs are easy to beat. Further,
the editorial suggests that DOT and other safety agencies need better drug tests. “On
that score the agency that sets standards for drug testing has been dragging its feet for
seven years.” The editorial further suggests that it is time to stop the “foot
dragging” and support a superior drug test that will give the war against drugs a
lethal weapon.

Raymond C. Kubacki President and C.E.O. of Psychemedics Corporation said, “The
Psychemedics patented hair testing technology has been developed over 15 years.
Psychemedics has performed almost 2,500,000 hair tests for drugs of abuse using our
patented technology. Over 1700 U.S. corporations, many in the Fortune 500, plus six of the
country’s largest police departments, five Federal Reserve Banks, parole departments,
hospitals and universities rely on the Psychemedics hair testing method. It is the ‘gold
standard’ in hair testing.”

Raymond C. Kubacki continued, “We are pleased that a publication as prestigious and
important as “USA TODAY” identified a problem we have tried to address for many
years. The fact is, drug abusers know how to beat a urine test. We believe that among the
many serious incidents, two cited in the editorial, where a urine test failed to detect
drug abusers, would not have happened had a hair test been administered. We will continue
to work with the government to encourage them to include hair testing technology in their
weapons against drugs of abuse.”

SOURCE Psychemedics Corporation
http://www.prnewswire.com