EMPLOYERS FIND BENEFIT IN TESTING FOR DRUGS

Gannett Co. Inc. human-resources executive Jose Berrios is committed to
screening all of his company's new hires for drugs, despite a report that
raises new questions about the value of drug testing in the workplace.

Like most corporate drug-testing programs, Gannett's policy is strict. No
matter what your resume looks like, if you test positive for any drug, you
will not work for the Rosslyn-based national news organization. "We do not
focus on the level of drugs in the test, or the type of drug," Mr. Berrios
said. "Any trace is a red flag and we will not hire. If you refuse to take
a drug test, you will not get hired either."

America's war on drugs has infiltrated the nation's workplaces, from
manufacturing to the service sector to government.

Like the rest of the country, on any given day tens of thousands of area
employees and prospective hires are awaiting the results of a drug test,
some anxiously, the vast majority without concern.

In the past decade, pre-employment drug testing, random testing and testing
amid suspicion of use, has become commonplace among most large companies
and nearly half of all companies.

But a hotly debated report issued last month by the American Civil
Liberties Union concluded there was little evidence that corporate
investment in drug testing was worth the money. Local employers that use
drug testing are unshaken in their belief that it is the right thing to do.

Many employers that use drug testing are like Gannett, requiring all new
hires to take tests. Some, like Giant Foods Inc. of Landover, Md., require
pre-employment drug tests for a variety of jobs from the front office to
the warehouse. For drivers, Giant conducts both pre-employment and then
random drug tests.

"Our policy states that we will do pre-employment testing for selected
positions but not all," said Debbie Munley, human resources manager for
Giant Foods Inc.

"The jobs we drug test for are considered high-risk jobs, the warehousing,
manufacturing, tractor-trailer, pharmacy, loss prevention and administrative."

Other companies, such as America Online of Sterling, Va., will test only
when they feel they have a reason.

"If we suspect that an employee is using drugs we will require that they
undergo a medical evaluation which could include a drug or alcohol test,"
said AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein. "We reserve the right to address that
situation in any way, up to and including termination."

Evaluating Costs

The ACLU report, based on a decade of studies conducted by the National
Science Foundation and the American Management Association (AMA), found
that few companies have examined whether the money spent on testing
enhances the bottom line.

It calls into question statistics widely used by anti-drug groups and
testing companies that claim drug use costs employers up to $100 billion
annually in lost productivity.

Critics of the report are legion. Proponents of drug testing, both in the
private sector and in the Clinton administration's Office of National Drug
Control Policy, accuse the ACLU of pushing for the legalization of drugs.

But Lew Maltby, director of the ACLU's task force on civil liberties in the
workplace, denied that, saying the ACLU does view random workplace drug
testing as an invasion of privacy.

"We also recognize that employers must make business decisions based on the
bottom line," Mr. Maltby said.

"It sounds like a good investment, but few companies have conducted
cost-benefit analyses of their drug-testing programs. We think if they look
at the cost and benefit, they might reconsider drug testing," he said.

A Corporate Investment

The total cost of a corporate drug-testing program varies considerably
depending on the size of the company and the frequency of testing.

The AMA estimates that the average cost of a drug test is $35 per employee.

Companies with fewer than 500 employees spend about $8,000 per year on drug
testing, while companies with more than 10,000 employees spend about
$281,000, figures the AMA considers nominal.

In 1987, just 21 percent of AMA's members had instituted drug-testing
programs, 79 percent had not. By 1996 those numbers were reversed, and
today fully 81 percent of AMA's 70,000 members have drug-testing programs
in place.

But only 8 percent have ever conducted a cost-benefit analysis.

The ACLU study also asked companies if they had evidence that drug testing
had reduced absenteeism, disability claims, employee theft or workplace
violence. In each case only a single-digit percentage of companies answered
yes.

Like many local human-resource executives, Mr. Barrios, of Gannett, would
not reveal how much money his company spends on drug testing. Whatever the
cost, it is worth it, he said.

Miss Munley of Giant said she does not know how much Giant spends each year
on drug testing. But she agreed that keeping the company drug free was a
top priority, and worth every penny.

The Law

While most companies are not required by law to drug test their employees,
the dramatic rise in testing began during the Reagan administration with
the enactment in 1988 of the Drug Free Workplace Act.

The law requires that companies with federal contracts in excess of $25,000
demonstrate that they have made "appropriate efforts" to maintain a
drug-free workplace. At the same time, the act does not require any form of
drug testing.

Under the Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act of 1991, employers
are required to drug test all workers who apply for, or currently hold,
safety-sensitive positions in the transportation industry.

Also, within the federal government, any position that is considered
security sensitive requires drug testing. That means that all White House,
Defense Department, State Department, Justice Department and many
congressional employees must undergo drug tests.

The laws, coupled with aggressive anti-drug campaigns in each presidential
administration since the Reagan era have encouraged more companies to weed
out drug users from the workplace, whether they are weekend pot smokers or
heroin addicts.

Corporate insurance companies also have contributed to the rising trend in
testing by offering cheaper coverage for companies that maintain a strict
workplace drug-use policy that includes some form of testing.

The Case For Testing

Advocates of drug testing for years have argued that drug use in the
workplace costs corporate America billions of dollars in lost productivity.
They cite a 1980s study by the Research Triangle Institute (RTI), an
independent North Carolina research organization, that said drug users cost
businesses $33 million each year in lost productivity.

That cost estimate has risen over the years. Today, anti-drug groups say
$100 billion a year is lost annually as a result of drug use, an upward
revision made to account for inflation.

The numbers are based on a comparison of National Household Survey data.
RTI compared the income of households that contained a daily marijuana
smoker with the income of households that did not. The non-daily marijuana
households earned a total of $33 billion more each year.

The ACLU argues that it is inaccurate to measure productivity based on
household rather than individual income. Further, there are clearly many
more households without pot smokers, so their aggregate income would
naturally be much larger.

Regardless of statistics, most large corporations have accepted the notion
that they are better off with strict drug-testing policies. According to
the AMA study, most human resource professionals are convinced that testing
is a sound investment.

"Businesses drug test for business reasons, and they know it helps
productivity," said Bob Weiner, spokesman for the Office of National Drug
Control Policy.

Trak Auto Corp., a chain with stores in the D.C. area, conducts
pre-employment drug tests on all of its new workers. While it reserves the
right to test employees once they are on the job amid suspicion, the
company has never needed to.

"We have been quite pleased with the quality of our new hires since we
began testing all of our applicants two years ago," said Bill Yeager, Trak
Auto human-resources manager.

Bob Hirsch, a Washington lawyer who consults several local companies
regarding workplace drug prevention, said all of his clients at the firm of
Jackson, Lewis, Schnitzler & Krupman agree that testing is an essential
tool for protecting a company's interests.

"I think it's nonsense," Mr. Hirsch said of the ACLU argument against
testing. "I think employers who are paying wages ought to be able to get a
return on their investment."

As the debate rages on, drug use is on the decline in America and the
number of positive-test rates for drugs in the workplace has fallen
dramatically.

In 1985, 9.7 percent of Americans admitted to current marijuana use and 3
percent admitted to current cocaine use, according to the Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Administration. By 1996, current marijuana use had
dropped to 4.7 percent and cocaine use to 0.8 percent.

During that same period, the percentage of full-time employees testing
positive for illicit drugs has fallen from 17.5 percent in 1985 to 7.4
percent in 1992, and held steady at 7.7 percent up to 1997.

The vast majority of positive tests have detected marijuana use within the
past three weeks, while a much smaller number tested positive for cocaine
use. Positive tests for other drugs are rare, though lab specialists note
that methamphetamine use appears to be rising rapidly.

Anti-drug groups said the declines in drug use prove that widespread
workplace testing is a strong deterrent.

Both the ACLU and the AMA counter that declines in positive test rates have
occurred because more companies are conducting pre-employment and random
tests, and thus getting a larger percentage of employees who have never
touched illicit drugs.

As Mr. Weiner of the Office of National Drug Control Policy sees it,
drug-testing to cut drug use in the workplace is simply not a difficult
decision for most companies.

"Do these companies want a guy who smokes a joint on a Saturday night
driving one of their vans, or setting up a news conference on a Monday
morning?" he asks. "Do parents want this weekend pot smoker teaching their
children, or driving the school bus?"