IT'S TIME WE ALL SAID NO TO ABSURD DRUG-TESTING

I am employed in the transportation of a hazardous material, propane, and in
that capacity subject to random drug tests by federal law. My last test came
on the same day the Lockney school board's decision to test all students hit
the papers, and a day before a column by Robyn Blumner ran in this paper.

While factually correct, Blumner never addressed some of the best objections
to suspicionless drug testing. First is abrogation of individual rights;
second, unreliability; and third, cost benefit ratio, to which she did
allude.

For my test, I strolled into one of the local minor emergency clinics, the
most common collection site, and presented my paperwork. I spent the next
hour crossing my legs and hoping to be called before I dribbled my "sample"
on the seat. Of the people in the waiting room, one was actually ill, the
rest waiting to fill a bottle.

Nationally and in Texas, the workplace positive rate bottomed out at 2.5% in
1994 and remains close to that. At that rate, employees squirming in waiting
rooms account for far more lost productivity than actual drug use. Truly we
have become a nation of sheep to allow ourselves to be treated so without
even a hint of individual suspicion.

An American Management Association survey of silicon valley electronics firm
showed them spending over $50,000 for each positive result. The federal
government spends $77,000 per positive test. Neither figure allows for the
effect this intrusive process has on good, law-abiding employees. The prime
beneficiaries of drug testing are the drug testing labs.

No lab procedure is error free. A Health and Human Services study in 1996
found the common immunoassay test to have accuracy rates as low as 60%.
Roche actually brags that its TestCup is 90% accurate, if the test is done
properly. The highest figure I have seen quoted is 99.95% in the text of the
Vernonia v. Acton case, where the Supreme court upheld the testing of
student athletes.

Let's be very generous and accept that number. With 20 million employees
subject to testing, even that unlikely accuracy rate would allow up to
50,000 people to test false positive. Note that the rate Roche brags about
increases that horrifying number twentyfold.

In federally mandated tests, all positives have to be confirmed by a gas
chromatograph/mass spectometer test, and be performed at one of the 70
NIDA/SAMSHA certified labs. [note: yes, I know it's SAMHSA, but everybody in
the business pronounces it "samsha" and that's how I came to write it.] If
your employer tests of his own volition, he can use any of the 1,200 labs in
the country, using any method that suits his pocketbook. At $300 per GC/MS,
good luck.

Add to the mix the other growth industry drug testing has spawned, that of
masking or altering agents designed to fool the tests. Many are useless, but
some types do work. There is always the foolproof method for the determined
of running a clean sample by catheter directly into the bladder. Ouch, but
people really do that.

Given the evasions available to the real user, we may well be bouncing more
innocent people out of jobs than we are catching guilty. Legal challenges to
a false positive are very difficult and rarely succeed.

Do you have allergies or headaches, or take vitamins? All sorts of
medicines, foods, and dietary supplements can yield false positives. In US
v. Gaines, an Air Force master sargent was exonerated after it was shown his
perfectly legal, commonly sold hemp oil based supplement could false
positive even a GC/MS test.

The court rulings on this subject are all over the map. Testing of
transportation personell has been upheld. Chandler v. Miller said elected
officials could not be compelled to test. Private schools can do as they
please. The Vernonia and Todd cases allow schools to test students in
extracurricular programs, on the grounds these are elective.

The court in Vernonia "caution(ed) against the assumtion that suspicionless
drug tests will pass constitutional muster in other contexts." Sure enough,
last month the Supreme Court rejected an Anderson, Ind. policy calling for
testing of any suspended student prior to readmission, in a case involving a
student suspended for fighting. Assuming the Court follows the logic in
Anderson, Lockney isn't even close to legal.

Larry Tannahill of Lockney is a hero. When the school started testing all
students, he looked at his honor roll son and said, "NO!". Mind you, any
parents, anywhere, who trust a twenty dollar test more than their own child
can easily obtain one. I am only disappointed that Tannahill so far stands
alone. Lockney could better spend $12,000 adding the Bill of Rights to its
curriculum.