HOW TO CHEAT ON A URINE TEST

B.Y.O.P.

EDMONTON - 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 on to 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, sometimes weeks earlier.

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

All these new products are causing headaches for those trying to identify
drug users in their workplace.

There are no laws in Alberta that specifically prohibit employers from
conducting drug tests, as long as they observe human-rights and
personal-privacy provisions. Generally, that means letting people give
their samples unobserved in private washrooms.

Human-rights law is still evolving, leaving the question of workplace
drug-testing murky, until more cases are heard by courts and tribunals.

Many employers, particularly in heavy industry, are testing their
employees. Companies such as Syncrude Canada screen all new employees for
drugs and alcohol. The tests, said spokeswoman Kara Flynn, are part of the
company's commitment to safety.

A 2002 survey by the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission (AADAC)
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.

Dynacare Kasper Medical Laboratories, the only lab accredited in Western
Canada to do employee drug testing, does about 60,000 tests a year.

Dr. Penny Colbourne, director of the company's substance-abuse testing
laboratory, said the lab has been on the watch for masking agents in urine
samples since about 1999. It now runs a panel of tests to catch the fake
pee as well.

About eight per cent of employment-related tests come back positive for
drugs, Colbourne said. The most common drug, found in about two-thirds of
the positive tests, is marijuana.

They also are seeing more people try to cheat. From time to time clients
walk in and all of a sudden their pants are wet from trying to smuggle a
baggie in with someone else's urine.

"We are certainly seeing more substituted samples come through," she said.
"We are trying to actively detect them and deter that behaviour."

The constant evolution of products on the market makes it a cat-and-mouse
game. The real, dried urine now being sold is the latest challenge for labs.

The products also are becoming a source of concern for employers,
particularly those who deal with hazardous work sites such as the
construction industry. Those sites accounted for more than 40 per cent of
Alberta's 109 workplace fatalities in 2004.

Peter Dunfield, safety-committee chairman at the Construction Owners
Association of Alberta, said a provincial review of toxicology data from
290 fatal workplace incidents between 1990 and 2001 found that 11 per cent
of the dead had alcohol or illicit drugs in them.

"It surprises me and shocks me as a safety professional that people are so
blatantly willing to cheat and defraud in their actions with regards to a
substance-abuse test," Dunfield said. "This is no different, from what I
see, than fraudulently putting in time sheets for time you didn't work.

"This is a safety policy we're talking about and this is a test that simply
demonstrates your commitment to safety in what is arguably one of the most
hazardous and dangerous work environments."

The Construction Owners Association is drafting a new model that companies
could follow for drug testing practices. Brad Anderson, its executive
director, said Friday it may be time to consider lobbying the provincial
government to make fake urine or masking agents illegal.

"It's not a joke," Anderson said. "This is serious stuff if people think
they can beat the system."