WORKPLACE DRUG RATE LOWER IN CITIES

NEW YORK (AP) -- Name three regions with high rates of workers on drugs.

New York, Chicago and Los Angeles -- right?

Nope. Try southwestern Tennessee, western Indiana and northwestern Florida,
where 8 percent to 14 percent of workers' tests came back positive. That
compares with 4 percent to 6 percent of those tested in the big three
cities and 2 percent to 4 percent in Miami, according to a SmithKline
Beecham drug testing study released Tuesday.

The results surprised even some of those who ran the study.

``I would've expected the large metropolitan areas around New York, around
Philadelphia, around Miami, around Los Angeles to show a high percentage of
positives,'' said Tom Johnson, spokesman for the British drug and
laboratory testing company.

Johnson, who couldn't account for the high rates in some rural regions,
said the results show drug use among working people in major cities isn't
more prevalent than among those in suburban and rural communities.

SmithKline Beecham based its results on the nearly 5 million workplace drug
tests the company performed for U.S. employers last year. With 20 percent
of the market, SmithKline is the nation's largest drug tester.

Nationwide, fewer of the American workers undergoing tests are testing
positive for illicit drugs, and those who do have turned more to marijuana
and less to cocaine, the study found.

About 5 percent of workers tested positive for illegal substances in 1997,
down from 5.8 percent in 1996. The rate of positive tests has declined or
remained the same each year since 1987, when it was 18.1 percent.

As workers were found to have taken drugs, those who did increasingly chose
marijuana over cocaine, the study found.

``We're doing more testing but finding that the rate continues to
decline,'' Johnson said. ``Marijuana continues to be the drug of choice.''

Tests detected marijuana in 60 percent of those who tested positive last
year, up from 54 percent in 1996. Cocaine use, however, declined from
nearly 23 percent to less than 17 percent during the same period.

Johnson said there's no way to know if the results are representative of
the U.S. work force. The company's results covered areas that account for
about three-quarters of the nation's population.

Fewer positive tests doesn't necessarily mean fewer workers taking drugs.

The rise of workplace drug testing has spawned a cottage industry in ways
to beat the tests. Richard Haddad, whose Health Tech company in Georgia
gets 500 calls a day from people asking about herbal detoxification teas,
urine sample additives and other products, calls the business a
``multimillion-dollar industry.''

However, officials from the drug-testing industry say they can detect many
typical ruses -- such as workers who flush their body with water and herbal
teas -- by analyzing the content of workers' urine.

Despite the rise of the test-beating industry, workplace drug testing
appears to be more popular among employers. Last month the Supreme Court
allowed random drug tests for some people with access to the White House
complex, despite arguments that government is trampling privacy rights in
pursuit of a drug-free work force.

As many as 10 million adults use illicit drugs per month and more than 70
percent of them are employed, according to federal statistics.

Workers in jobs SmithKline classifies as ``safety-sensitive'' tested
positive less often, at 3.5 percent of all those tested. That compares with
5.2 percent among those in the general work force.

When employers tested workers ``for cause,'' meaning they believed there
was reason to suspect drug use, more than one in four workers tested positive.

Copyright 1998 Associated Press.