DRUG ABUSERS DON'T NECESSARILY LOSE JOBS

2nd Chance Is Rule, Not Exception, In Safety-Related Work

Think the pilot of the airplane carrying 300 passengers has never been
caught flying drunk? Think the driver of the train chugging at 70 mph
has never been busted for cocaine? Think the surgeon who needs steady
hands to complete that touchy surgery has never been caught blasted on
prescription drugs?

You might be right. Or you might be dead wrong.

People in all kinds of jobs who have direct responsibility for your
safety almost always get a second chance if they are caught using
illegal drugs or alcohol on the job.

Many of them can be caught two and three times working under the
influence - and then resume flying planes, driving trains or
performing surgery.

That's because no federal law requires that any employee be fired for
substance abuse violations, regardless of how safety-related the job.

The Americans with Disabilities Act might even require second chances,
although the courts are still sorting that issue out.

In the meantime, accepted practice by unions and employers has been to
allow at least one trip to rehabilitation programs for offenders
without being fired.

The second crash of a Mass Transit Administration train in six months
brought this information to light: At least four MTA light rail
operators have twice tested positive for using illegal drugs on the job
- - and have resumed transporting passengers.

Further, more than 40 MTA drivers have been caught once using drugs on
the job in the past three years and have been permitted to resume
driving.

While the MTA tries to strengthen its penalties for operators caught
using drugs, Tuesday's crash has dramatized the broader conflict
between what some praise as an enlightened "second chance" approach to
treating substance abuse and the risk of allowing known substance
abusers to fly airplanes, drive trains and operate on patients.

"Look, there is no better advocate for people who need help," said Dr.
Michael Gimbel, director of the Bureau of Substance Abuse for Baltimore
County and himself a former drug addict. "But the question is: Should
addicts be in certain sensitive positions that concern public safety?
In my opinion, they clearly should not be."

Counters John Mazor, speaking for the nation's largest commercial
pilots union: "That goes back to the Dark Ages, where the way of
dealing with substance abuse was very harsh and very primitive. I
think we've progressed since then."

While 1990's Americans with Disabilities Act is responsible for
creating many of the second chances - substance abuse is considered a
disability - unions like Mazor's also play a role.

Pilots caught using illegal drugs are not covered under the
disabilities act, but the union has negotiated to protect them.

The union, the Air Line Pilots Association, has made sure that the
58,000 pilots it represents have a chance for rehabilitation before
they face the loss of their jobs.

In the transportation industry, any "safety-related" personnel are
subjected to random drug and alcohol tests, as required by the U.S.
Department of Transportation.

Individual agencies use the Transportation Department's requirements as
minimum standards and then tailor their own rules. So the Federal
Aviation Administration has different rules for its pilots and
mechanics than the Federal Transit Administration has for light rail
operators.

And those rules are different from those for engineers of Amtrak
trains, under the jurisdiction of the Federal Railroad Administration.

"It's a lot of different policies, but we all work from the same base,"
said Jerry Fisher, a safety specialist with the Federal Transit
Administration. "Basically, we're all following the same minimum
standards, and from there it's up to the different agencies."

The Transportation Department requires random drug testing of at least
50 percent of safety-sensitive personnel in a year and alcohol testing
of at least 10 percent.

In 1998, the last year for which statistics are available, more than
111,000 urine tests for marijuana, cocaine, PCP, opiates and
amphetamines were conducted of safety-sensitive employees in the light
rail industry.

Nearly 1,200 employees tested positive for at least one of the drugs,
according to the transit administration.

There is no guarantee that any of the employees was fired or moved to
another job. Federal regulations do not require that employers fire
those who test positive; neither are they required to place them in
jobs where they are not responsible for public safety.

Federal regulations require that employees who are kept on after
testing positive for illicit drug use be referred to a substance-abuse
professional and then be randomly tested at least six times during the
next 12 months.

In the case of Maryland's Mass Transit Administration, operators who
test positive for drugs can return to driving in as few as 15 days, so
long as they are enrolled in a treatment program.

"We have faith in the medical people," said Ennis Fonder Jr., president
of Baltimore Local 1300 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which
represents the operators. "If you look at our record for safety - we
move 335,000 people a day and we've had these two accidents - you can
see it's not really even a problem."

Airline pilots face stricter controls, but getting caught flying a
plane after a few martinis won't necessarily end their careers.

If a pilot is diagnosed as drug-or alcohol-dependent, the FAA
automatically revokes his or her medical certificate, which effectively
grounds the pilot.

But participation in a drug or alcohol treatment program can get a
pilot back in a plane.

A grounding lasts an average of about two years, although it can be
shorter or longer, said Mazor from the pilots union.

"The first thing you're going to do is not let them back flying an
airplane," he said. "But that's not the end of the line. It's not
forever."

Which is exactly what bothers some people about the policies in some
safety-sensitive professions.

Most substance-abuse experts agree that the recidivism rate for people
who seek or are directed to treatment is somewhere around 60 percent.

In MTA's light rail crash at Baltimore-Washington International Airport
in February, in which 22 passengers were injured, the operator of the
train later tested positive for cocaine.

He had also tested positive for cocaine in 1994 and was allowed to
return to work driving trains.

The medical field is no more stringent.

"We've had doctors who were picked up driving under the influence, go
and sign themselves into an alcohol recovery facility, and we couldn't
do anything to keep them from going into the operating room," said Dr.
Israel Weiner, a former chairman of the Board of Physician Quality
Assurance, which licenses doctors in Maryland.

He said the Americans with Disabilities Act specifically prohibits
firing people who are recovering alcoholics; signing into a rehab
facility legally qualifies a person as "recovering."

"To say a doctor with a problem shouldn't work again, ever, would be
like taking someone who has epilepsy and saying they shouldn't drive
again, ever - just in case," said Michael C. Llufrio, director of
physician rehabilitation for the Maryland Medical Society.

But banning people from such sensitive positions, said Gimbel, the
substance abuse director, might be the most prudent course.

"I would certainly feel comfortable saying if a person has been in
rehab for cocaine addiction, they are certainly a higher-risk person on
the job than someone who hasn't," he said.

"Do you want that person operating on you or flying your plane?"