SOME FIRMS SAY NO TO DRUG SCREENING

They are the staples of a modern-day job search: a polished resume, glowing
references and a clean urine sample.

Without fulfilling that last criterion for a satisfactory drug screen,
applicants at many U.S. companies can forget about employment.

In the almost two decades since the federal government launched its
"drug-free workplace" promotions, tests for illicit drugs have become
standard for thousands of employers. The tests have been credited with
everything from higher productivity to decreased worker compensation claims.
Tests are given to 25 million people annually, with an additional 25 million
workers subject to screening.

But as thousands of displaced workers hunt for jobs in the economic slump
and hiring has slowed, the $737 million drug-testing industry's expansion in
workplaces has slowed accordingly.

And some employers are also less willing to spend money for drug testing if
they do not believe that it contributes to the bottom line.

Growth of the drug-testing industry, which averaged more than 12.5 percent
annually during the 1990s, has tapered off to only about 1 percent a year.

Laboratories also struggle to provide accurate testing results despite
"counterproducts" -- the array of additives, cleansers and gizmos, readily
available on the Internet, that employees can utilize to circumvent a
positive drug test. Critics question whether businesses reap tangible
benefits from the urine-in-a-cup routine.

Workplace drug tests -- primarily of job applicants, but also of employees,
in some cases -- took off during the "just say no" era of the 1980s, with
heavy promotion by the federal government. They typically detect opiates,
cocaine derivatives, barbiturates, methamphetamine and marijuana, revealing
drug use from several days or perhaps even months earlier.

Sixty-one percent of companies screen job applicants, and 50 percent test
their employees, according to the American Management Association's most
recent survey in 2001. That is down from the 1996 peak, when 68 percent of
employers screened candidates.

Meldron Young, the association's human resources practice consultant, said
drug tests remain a standard element of most employers' hiring procedures.

But the weak economy has prompted businesses to review spending, and some
have eliminated drug screens for employees whose duties do not pose safety
risks.

"They probably won't waste their money trying to do it," Young said. "You
have people that are moving into the upper echelons of corporate America now
that kind of take the stance that if it's not affecting the person's
performance, it's not an issue."

Joseph Halligan, chief executive of Haltom City, Texas-based PharmChem,
linked the downturn in testing, at least in part, to the current hiring
slump.

"If you think about the amount of hiring being done at the moment, needless
to say, that segment of the business is down," Halligan said.

Halligan, whose company offers a variety of testing products but specializes
in urine tests, said that some clients have also scaled back their testing
efforts.

Businesses that used to screen applicants for positions at all levels may
now limit the tests only to candidates for certain jobs, he said.

"I think there are a number of companies that have looked at the cost side
of this thing and said, 'Do we need to do all of this drug testing?' "
Halligan said. "The end result is they're not spending the dollars."

Focus on bottom line

Although the notion that drug users make for bad employees has a commonsense
appeal, Young said companies generally have not quantified the
before-and-after results of their anti-drug campaigns.

Without evidence of drug testing's advantages to their own operations, some
managers are less willing than they used to be to spend roughly $30 apiece
to test applicants and employees, he said.

"Employers right now are so in survival mode," Young said. "It doesn't
contribute to the bottom line right now."

That outlook troubles Becky Vance, executive director of Drug Free Business
Houston.

"In leaner economies, corporations tend to cut back a little bit," she said.
"It's scary when you think about what that might cost. You can't afford not
to do it, really."

Vance's organization encourages Texas companies to test all job applicants
and to randomly screen employees. Drug users are less able to function at
work, she says, and they take more days off and have higher healthcare
bills.

"Being a former drug user in the workplace, I know that it has an adverse
effect," Vance said. "And I know that drug users don't leave their drugs at
home when they show up for work."

Vance, who gave up cocaine about 15 years ago, said employers' anti-drug
campaigns can be a formidable deterrent to drug use.

"You can do it in the schools. You can do it in the churches," she said.
"You need to do it in the workplaces, because that's where the people are."

Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the NORML Foundation, a research
organization that supports marijuana legalization, has a different
perspective.

He believes that employers have good reason to be concerned about workers
who are high on the job. But urine tests are far more likely to nab
employees who use drugs at a Saturday night party than those who are
impaired during their work hours, he said.

And he believes that drug-testing policies are aimed more at morality than
productivity.

"It's certainly not about public safety. And it can't be about building a
better relationship between employees," he said. "This is about trying to
find out if somebody is breaking the law and then holding them accountable
for it."

St. Pierre will not get much argument from Vance, who said that smart
businesses use pre-employment tests to keep drug users off their payrolls.

"You don't want to hire them on, so you will screen them out," Vance said.
"Those aren't the most stellar members of the community, and employers have
a right to mandate that people who work for them don't break the law."

Council's comparison

Advocates of workplace drug testing cite a number of bottom-line benefits to
employers who ferret out drug users. But opponents cite their own statistics
to argue to businesses that drug screens are a waste of money.

According to the American Council for Drug Education, substance abusers,
when compared to nonabusers, are:

10 times more likely to miss work. 3.6 times more likely to be involved in
on-the-job accidents. Five times more likely to file a workers compensation
claim. 33 percent less productive. Responsible for healthcare costs that are
three times as high.

Some opponents of blanket testing question the accuracy of that data, and
they note that many of those abusers are consuming alcohol -- not marijuana
or any other illegal drug.

The American Civil Liberties Union, in a 1999 report, argued that
drug-testing programs are not cost-effective -- costing industries millions
of dollars a year to nab the small percentage of workers who use drugs.

The ACLU said that the federal government spent $11.7 million to test nearly
29,000 workers in 1990. Only 153 employees flunked, putting the cost of
finding each user at $77,000, according to the ACLU.

Citing several academic and other studies, the ACLU claims that drug users
are not any more likely than their nonuser counterparts to have workplace
accidents.

The organization concedes that frequent users of hard drugs, including
heroin and crack cocaine, are unlikely to be reliable workers. But the
report notes that the majority of those who use illicit drugs are actually
occasional users who never go beyond marijuana.

On the flip side, a 2000 study of drug testing in the construction industry,
conducted by Cornell University, concluded that companies that tested
employees lowered their injury rates more than their counterparts that did
not test.

The Labor Department cites a study conducted by the U.S. Postal Service,
which revealed that employees who tested positive in pre-employment drug
tests were 66 percent more likely to be absent and 77 percent more likely to
be discharged within three years than those who came up clean.

Job hunter Marie Kemins said she understands the motive to identify drug
users.

Kemins, a resident of Southlake, Texas, was taken aback by her first
pre-employment drug screen in 1996, but says that she now accepts the tests
as routine.

"I always thought it was a positive thing," she said. "I work hard, and I
know people who can hide trouble."

Kemins, who is searching for a sales job, recalled a colleague at a
Washington electronics company whose impressive credentials were not enough
to counter a nasty drug habit.

"After about a month, he started showing up late and not pulling his
weight," she said. "Finally, I guess he went on a binge. We were told he
went back to Philadelphia and was in a crack house."

The experience convinced Kemins that seemingly "normal" people with harmful
drug addictions can be destructive to their employers.

"I guess it could be anyone," Kemins said.

"That's why when the drug-testing situation came up years later, I was fine
with it."