ESCALATING DRUG WAR

THRIVING TESTING-AIDS INDUSTRY AND EMPLOYERS BATTLE

Drug tests have become almost as common in the job application process as
listing a previous employer.

And just as some applicants fudge their job history and overstate their
academic credentials, many are trying to thwart drug screening tests.

The result is a thriving industry in "drug testing aids" -- products
designed to beat drug screening tests.

The hundreds of available products and companies that sell them are
involved in an elaborate and ever-escalating cat-and-mouse game of drug
testing. The drug-test cheaters raise the bar and the companies that test
for drugs jump higher, as do the prices for those tests.

Workplace industry groups estimate that nearly 87 percent of employers use
drug testing as a pre-employment screening method, a percentage that has
grown exponentially in the last few years. SmithKline Beecham Clinical
Laboratories, for example, performed 300,000 tests in 1987; this year, it
will do 5.5 million.

The company is "trying to keep ahead of the curve" said spokesman Thomas
Johnson.

Fortunately, for Johnson and his company, many of the drug-foiling products
are little more than diuretics designed to flush the system.

"The solution to pollution is dilution," is the motto of the anti- testing
trade, Johnson said.

That strategy makes detection simple -- diluted urine is easy to spot.

Another method is to put something into the urine that will mask the
presence of the drug or invalidate the test.

He said some employers have taken the stance that a tampered-with test
result should meet with the same consequences as a positive test result.

That kind of philosophy makes John Hartman, president of a Cleveland-area
chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, cry
"foul."

Drug testing doesn't indicate on-the-job intoxication, he said, but past use.

"Smoke a joint over the weekend and you can fail the test," Hartman fumed.

Hartman sells drug-testing products at his store, Cannibas Connection, in
Lakewood, Ohio, and said he knows of only three failures among the
thousands of people who have used the product.

"People who are on drugs will do anything to beat the system," conceded Amy
Cunningham, an account representative with Zenza Mobile Medical Service, a
mobile drug-testing service based in Twinsburg, Ohio.

As people begin to tamper with specimens, Zenza has become more vigilant.
It added a blueing agent to toilets so that during a test, employees can't
dip the specimen cup in the water and dilute their urine. They also turn
off the water.

People are required to wash their hands before being tested so that any
substances on their hands or under their nails can't be added to their
urine collection.

The specimen cup even comes with a temperature strip that determines the
urine is between 90 and 100 degrees. Over or under and the specimen is
automatically rejected, Cunningham said.

The next step is to test the concentration of the urine. Diluted urine is
flagged as possibly tampered with or the result of a person flushing his or
her system.

The company also tests for nitrates, which are common in products popular
with the drug test-thwarting set.

Such products are expensive and often not worth the money, said John Boja,
assistant professor of pharmacology at the Northeastern Ohio Universities
College of Medicine. He recently examined a popular product in the Akron,
Ohio, area.

"Thirty-five dollars for water, sugar, flavorings, creatinine and
vitamins," Boja scoffed. "With that much money, they could have made enough
solution for several hundred bottles. . . . The profit margins are enormous."

By drinking a lot of water for a few days, depending on the type of drugs
and the quantity used, a person may be able to flush his system so chemical
traces would be below levels detected in a standard drug- screening test,
Boja said. The other methods of tampering -- adding eye drops, drain
cleaners, bleach or chemicals to the urine sample -- are usually foiled, he
said.

People do desperate, silly and sometimes dangerous things to pass drug
tests, Boja said, when there's an easy way to pass them: Stop using drugs.

One company that makes drug-test-passing products agrees with him.

Detoxit Inc. in Dallas caters to the former drug user who doesn't want past
use to show up in his system, not active imbibers, said Devon Allen, a
medical technologist with the company.

Some drugs can linger in your system for 30 days, and Allen said, that's a
long time for a person who has quit using and wants to find a job.

Allen's products aren't designed to mask or cover up the drug use, he said.

"Anyone who says they can get (drugs) out in three hours or overnight is
lying and cheating people," Allen said.