TESTING 'ENCOURAGES HARD DRUG USE'

Exclusive: Employers told that prison experience shows
checks drive up use of heroin, which is harder to trace

Random drug-testing at work will drive employees to swap cannabis for
hard drugs that do not linger in the system, as it is already said to
have done in prison, a human rights spokeswoman will warn today.

Kay Springham, of the Scottish Human Rights Centre, will speak out at
a conference in Stirling debating the growing trend towards workplace
drug-testing.

The main dissenting voice at the Scottish Drugs Forum conference will
be chief constable of Grampian, Dr Ian Oliver, who controversially
introduced drug-testing for his police officers.

In a speech titled 'Why Drug Testing is Necessary', Dr Oliver will
argue that employers have a social duty to uncover drug-takers and
stop them. He has declined to speak to the press about his views.

But Ms Springham said yesterday: "I don't think employers have either
the right or the responsibility to drug-test their employees. All they
are really entitled to know about them is whether the person is able
to do their job.

"There has to be a worry that people will switch from cannbabis to
heroin if they knew they were likely to be tested.

"If you were a moderate user of cannabis, which you knew would stay in
your system for five weeks while heroin would only stay in your system
for one day, and you were worried you were going to be caught, there
is a concern you would switch to something less inoffensive.

"It is a concern that what has happened in prisons might happen if
there was to be random testing of employees." Random drug-testing
would also poison the relationship between employers and their
workers, said Ms Springham.

The information given by the test would merely be that the person had
taken a narcotic substance - not how much, nor when, nor whether they
were an occassional user or a drug abuser, nor whether they had ever
been incapable of performing their job.

"It is not like breathalysing for alcohol, where there is an agreed
limit beyond which impairment is assumed. The only judgement it would
enable the employer to make is moral..." Ms Springham said.

"Employers do have a legitimate concern in finding out if their
employee is a drug abuser, but they can do that by observation and
performance appraisal. There are plenty of signs, like absenteeism,
poor time-keeping, mood swings and irritablility, to identify whether
someone has a drug problem."

Drug-testing could become an expensive way of lulling employers into a
false sense of security, she added, as determined drug-takers would
find a way round the tests, as has allegedly happened in prison.

Prisoners subjected to mandatory drug testing (MDT) admit to having
carried in urine samples from drug-free prisoners to substitute for
their own urine. If they test positive for drugs they have extra days
added to their prison sentence and lose privileges.

Prison MDT results show no major switches from one type of drug to
another in the months since testing was introduced.

But both prisoners and the prison officers who administer the tests
have warned of a swing towards taking heroin in prison, which unlike
cannabis is quickly purged from the body and is thus difficult to detect.

Graham MacArthur, who has organised the Stirling conference for the
Scottish Drugs Forum, said the aim was to stimulate a thorough debate
before Scotland drifted much further down the path of accepting
drug-testing at work.

"Testing is creeping in all over the place," Mr MacArthur
said.

"In terms of people like airline pilots and drivers, who have to make
crucial decisions and look after people's safety, there is little
dispute. It is clear we have to ensure these people are screened and
have neither drug nor alcohol problems.

"It is the grey areas we need to look at. Why test, why find out if
your employees have taken a drug if it doesn't affect their work?

"Drugs are illegal, which makes it easy - yet random alcohol testing
would cause an outcry, though drinking is just as incapacitating and
is far more widespread. Do employers have responsibility? It's a moral
minefield."