Roughneck Reality: Testing Positive

OIL-FIELD METH USE GROWS

Long Hours Amid a Labor Shortage Opens the Door for Stimulants.

When Bruce Humphries broke into the energy business in 1975 as an
oil-field laborer, he found two things king among roughnecks: booze
and bluster.

Now, Humphries, a rig manager in Duncan, says the hard work is still
there, but he's seeing something new he doesn't like: "It seems like
the drug of choice is the meth. It's just a scourge."

Little federal or state data exist to show how bad the drug-abuse
problem has become in the oil patch. But some industry officials are
concerned about the dangers of methamphetamine in an industry where
the work is known to be hazardous.

Frank Harrison, CEO of Oklahoma City-based Bronco Drilling, which
employs 2,000 people, said evidence of meth use shows up in nearly
half of the company's positive drug tests.

Meth has replaced marijuana as the offending substance most often
seen in the company's tests, he said.

"We've got an absolute epidemic," Harrison said. "You've got a
formidable foe. Good Lord, you've got the devil himself in meth."

Tom Cunningham, drug task force coordinator for the Oklahoma district
attorneys council, said industries

that demand long hours, such as oil rig work, can foment drug abuse.

"Any job that requires people to operate 12- to 18-hour shifts --
that will push a person toward a stimulant," Cunningham said.

Meth can keep users wired for days but has drastic side effects that
leave abusers sick and emaciated.

"On a rig, the hours are long and the pay is pretty good, but the
work is tiring and the conditions can be tough," says Joe Kem,
regional manager for Rock Island, Ill.-based Bituminous Insurance
Cos., which provides property casualty insurance to the oil and gas
industry. "It's a situation where some workers could be susceptible
to drug use."

In 2005, methamphetamine killed at least 71 people in Oklahoma, up 36
percent from the previous year, according to the state Medical
Examiner's office.

Lawmakers have sought to curb its spread by making pharmacies put
cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine, a key meth ingredient,
behind counters. Customers must show identification before buying the products.

But law enforcement officials say meth continues to proliferate,
smuggled straight up Interstate 35 from Mexico. And any kind of drug
abuse is a concern in a thriving industry undergoing labor shortages
and known for dangerous working conditions.

There were 15 deaths in the industry last year in Oklahoma, com pared
with five in 2002, state Department of Health records indicate.

Drug urine tests are used in an attempt to weed out abusers, but the
tests aren't foolproof. Employees have been known to cheat.

High demand for domestic oil and gas production has boosted labor needs.

Making matters worse, scores of industry workers, the ones lucky
enough to have weathered the oil bust in the 1980s, are fast
approaching retirement age, and some companies are scrambling for laborers.

The industry employs more than 325,000 people, mostly in California,
Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas, according to the U.S. Department of
Labor. Roughnecks can earn $50,000 a year, not counting overtime.

"Right now, finding competent employees is a problem," says Mike
Bernard, president of the Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association of Oklahoma.

Bronco is working to implement a policy that treats some workers
struggling with substance abuse and to put a counselor on the company payroll.

Representatives of many of the leading oil exploration companies are
reluctant to talk publicly about drug abuse in the industry.

"It's a huge problem in the business," Kem says. "The big question is
what do you do about it?"