SKICO RELAXES DRUG TESTING POLICY

Aspen Skiing Co. has changed its drug testing policy for employees
who are injured on the job, who damage company equipment in an
accident, or who are in a situation where a guest has been injured.

Employees in those and other circumstances are no longer
automatically required to take a mandatory drug test to determine if
there are threshold levels of marijuana, cocaine, opium or
barbiturates in their bloodstream.

Instead, employees will only be tested if their supervisor, a
supervisor or manager at a higher level, and someone from the human
resources department all determine that a drug test is reasonable.

If that determination is made, then the drug test is still mandatory.

And if illegal substances are found to be present above levels set
by the U.S. Department of Transportation, which is a commonly used
standard, then employees can still be fired or suspended and they
can still lose their company benefits.

The change in policy was announced to supervisors on Friday,
according to Jim Laing, a vice president with the company who
oversees both human resources and the company's retail division.

"We're evolving from the automatic, mandatory test for any kind of
accident," Laing said. "There is now more judgment involved. We can
now ask, 'Is this truly an accident or do we believe it is more than
an accident?' We're trying to be a little more thoughtful and a
little less mechanical."

Laing said other factors that might come into play for supervisors
and human resources personnel deciding to test an employee might
include whether the person has had a series of accidents or was
frequently having trouble reporting to work on time.

The company, which has 3,500 employees at peak season, is not
changing its drug testing polices regarding new hires, who will
still be randomly tested and who will still receive conditional job
offers based on the passage of a drug test, if they are selected.

The company does not test for alcohol, Laing said, because it is not
an illegal drug.

The relaxation of the automatic, post-accident, drug testing policy
means that if a waiter takes a bong hit on Friday night and on
Monday morning cuts his finger slicing lemons in the kitchen at The
Little Nell, there is less of a chance that his job, his ski season,
and perhaps his life, will unravel as a result of a mandatory drug test.

Laing was candid about such situations.

"The most difficult part of the policy was how to interpret positive
tests for THC, for pot," he said. "Everyone's body metabolizes it
differently, so you can test positive many days later."

Laing said that company officials have long been discussing the
change in policy.

The majority of the company's drug-testing policy was put in place
in 1995 - along with a grooming policy - and it has evolved ever
since. For example, when drug testing was first introduced, all new
hires were drug tested.

The latest evolution, Laing said, was an effort to build more
trusting relationships between the company and its employees.

"Instead of assuming everyone is always guilty, which is how you
could interpret the old policy, we've flipped that around," he said.

Drug test results at SkiCo have remained steady for years, Laing
said, with about 5 percent of tests coming back positive.

The Aspen Professional Ski Patrol Association, which just signed a
new two-year contract with SkiCo, had been asking for changes in the
policy for years during contract negotiations.

Doug Driscoll, the secretary for the association and the snow safety
officer for Aspen Mountain Ski Patrol, said that mandatory drug
tests for workers' compensation claims could be annoying, especially
when it was for a claim that was not related to a specific accident,
like a bone spur or a sore back.

"It was just annoying and accusatory whenever you had to go to
Buttermilk and pee in the cup," Driscoll said. "You don't know how
annoying it is until you have to do it. People didn't take it the
right way. Even the managers who had to be tested weren't happy about it."

Driscoll said he thought it was a positive step toward improving the
relationship between the company and employees. "It was like they
were accusing you for no reason. And my guess is they were testing a
lot more people than they had to," he said.

A veteran ski instructor with the company said the change in policy
would be welcome news to many employees. "It just makes it more
comfortable for everybody," said the ski instructor, who preferred
that his name not be used in conjunction with the topic of drug
testing. "You won't feel like they are looking over your shoulder."