PRISON GUARD GETS SUPPORT IN DRUG-TEST THRESHOLD ISSUE

JACKSON -- Reginald Fredette, a corrections officer from Jackson who
says he was wrongly suspended from his job for testing positive for
opiates after eating poppy-seed bagels, has found an ally in Trenton.

"I believe in zero tolerance, but you have to be fair," state Sen.
Robert W. Singer said yesterday.

At Fredette's request, Singer, R-Ocean, has written a letter to state
Attorney General John Farmer, asking him to investigate the officer's
case and explain why the state's drug-testing policy does not comply
with the federal government's, which Fredette contends is the reason
he was dismissed.

Fredette, 45, has a disciplinary hearing next Thursday and faces
permanent dismissal. He was removed from his job at the Adult
Diagnostics and Treatment Center in Woodbridge Dec. 13 for failing a
urine test the month before.

Fredette says his test came back positive for opiates because the
state's cutoff of 300 nanograms of opiate per milliliter of urine is
too stringent, persecuting him for eating bagels topped with poppy
seeds, from which opium can be made.

A subsequent test confirmed that Fredette had an opiate concentration
of 863 nanograms per milliliter, well below the standards used for
federal employees, which is 2,000 nanograms per milliliter.

Charles Lodico, a chemist with the federal government's Division of
Workplace Programs in Maryland, has said the federal government
changed its opiate cutoff for federal employees -- including workers
at the FBI, Justice Department and CIA -- from 300 to 2,000 nanograms
per milliliter in December of 1998 for the very reason Fredette's in
trouble now.

Eighty-five percent of employees who tested positive for opiates at
the 300-nanogram-per-milliliter threshold were later found innocent,
Lodico said.

Singer said believes the attorney general should have considered
modifying the state's threshold when the federal government changed
its threshold.