MARKET GROWS FOR CHEATING URINE TESTS

Companies Fear For Job Safety

Keeping a job used to be about minding your Ps and Qs. These days,
some people are minding their pee.

With workplace drug testing becoming more common in Alberta, there is
a brisk business in products to help drug users pass a urine test.

Beverages promising to mask or cleanse illegal drugs like marijuana
from your system have been available since the 1990s but more
recently, products such as synthetic urine or vials of real, dried
urine have come onto the market.

Shell Shock, a store with locations in Old Strathcona and Whitemud
Crossing, specializes in cannabis culture. These days, products such
as Dr. Green's Agent X, a unisex synthetic urine kit or Strip Extreme
cleaner, a masking drink, account for about 30 per cent of its sales.

"No one thinks you should be under the influence at work," store
manager Corinna Aikins said. "It's just what we do in our spare time
that isn't an employer's business."

The products, available in stores and online, gained notoriety this
week after the NFL handed Minnesota Vikings running back Onterrio
Smith a one-year suspension for violating the league's substance-abuse
policy. In April, Smith was caught with several vials of dried urine
and a device called The Original Whizzinator in his carry-on luggage
at a United States airport.

The product is a realistic prosthetic penis hooked up to an adjustable
belt. It comes with synthetic urine and heat packs that attach to the
belt to warm the pee to body temperature. Labs test the temperature of
urine samples as a precaution against cheating.

The company's website markets the device as "inexpensive, foolproof,
undetectable, premixed, irradiated and guaranteed to pass every time!"

About 100 people a week buy products, including The Whizzinator, from
Shell Shock's two stores to help pass drug tests. Aikins said some
people may be surprised by the diversity of people seeking to buy real
or synthetic urine.

"We're not talking just typical party people. We're talking mothers,
fathers, secretaries, grandparents, everybody."

The common thread, she said, is that all of them fear losing their
jobs for indulging in a toke in their recreational time.

"If they had a saliva test that covered the last eight hours, 99 per
cent of my customers would agree with that," Aikins said.

A 2002 survey by the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission found
that eight per cent of the 755 employers surveyed reported that their
companies had alcohol or drug-testing programs. In 1992, only one per
cent ran such programs.