BEYOND SUSPICION

When It Comes To Drug Testing, City Garbage-Truck Drivers Are Held To A
Higher Standard Than Cops

How would you feel about forcing cops to piss in a cup? Secure in knowing
the flatfoot frisking you in the park won't be tempted to filch your
dubage? Anxious in the realization that officers tasked to serve and
protect are drawn from your own booze-and-drug-scourged ranks?

With both considerations in mind, Salt Lake City Police Chief Rick Dinse
wants his boys and girls in blue subjected to random drug and alcohol testing.

"We put guns on police officers' hips and we take away people's freedoms
based on our power and authority," explained Dinse, who recently announced
he'll retire from the job in early 2006. "It seems to me that the public
has the right to believe in the best possible way that the people we send
out to do that are drug free."

Dinse doesn't suggest the SLCPD has a substance-abuse problem. But he isn't
so naive as to assume all 450 of his cops are squeaky clean. Random
testing, he said, is an "adequate precaution" to make certain.

Scant research exists to bolster conventional wisdom that addiction is more
prevalent in high-risk, high-stress, high-testosterone police work. But
University of Nevada Las Vegas addiction specialist Larry Ashley says the
conventional wisdom is well founded.

"Research does show that we have different expectations of law-enforcement
folks, so they as a rule don't have the normal safety valves that most
folks have available," said Ashley, co-author of Police Trauma and
Addiction: Coping with the Dangers of the Job, which appeared last year in
the FBI's Law Enforcement Bulletin. Because police officers are reluctant
to admit the psychological toll of repeated exposure to trauma--out of
machismo or fear for their jobs--Ashley suggests that officers are more
prone to "disassociate and mitigate the effects" with alcohol or drugs.

Hence the explosion of random-testing policies at major metropolitan police
departments nationwide. Paving the way, the Salt Lake County Sheriff's
Office has randomly spot-checked its officers for as long as Undersheriff
Jeff Carr can recall--at least 15 years, he said.

In the past five years, data provided by the sheriff's office show that 17
of its 920 sworn officers have been disciplined for drug-or alcohol-related
violations. Of the alcohol offenses, five off-duty DUIs resulted in one
termination and four suspensions; three public-intoxication raps yielded
two written warnings and a 12-hour suspension. Two officers resigned and
two others were fired for possessing a controlled substance. Two received
write-ups for failing to divulge prescriptions "which could impact safety
on the job," and another caught a weeklong unpaid vacation for requesting a
prescription drug from a county employee. Two others resigned after failing
tests ordered under the agency's "reasonable suspicion" policy. However,
none of the reported violations stemmed from random drug testing. That
said, the sheriff's office only tests a quarter of its force each year.

"It's certainly more [violations] than we'd like," said Carr, adding, "I
don't know that [the policy] is less effective" than it might be if every
officer was tested. "I think that we do a sufficient amount of testing to
ensure that we don't have a problem."

By comparison, based on information from the Salt Lake City Attorney's
Office, it would appear SLCPD Chief Dinse has little reason to be
concerned. If city attorney Martha Stonebrook's findings are all-inclusive,
just one SLCPD officer in the past five years has been disciplined for an
alcohol-or drug-related offense. That officer was allegedly intoxicated
when he smashed his pickup into a Geo Metro, left the scene, then returned
sucking on a bottle of whiskey in December 2003.

According to Dinse, however, the city's lawyers are mistaken. "I wouldn't
put it as high as 17, but I know that we've had more than one," he said.

City Weekly has learned that in early 2003, a Salt Lake City police
lieutenant was fired for possessing peyote buttons for use in Native
American religious rites. A department sergeant, who requested anonymity,
claims another officer resigned over steroid use within the past six
months. Though the sergeant said he doesn't see an overwhelming need for
random testing, he would welcome a policy because, "I'm sure there are some
out there taking something inappropriate," he said.

Studies have noted a nationwide increase in steroid use among officers
looking for an edge in the often physically taxing occupation. While Carr
is aware of the alarming side effects--"roid rage," for one--he
acknowledges the Sheriff's Office doesn't screen for steroids.

If Dinse had his druthers, he'd order a policy, but he said the courts have
ruled the matter needs to be hashed out in collective-bargaining
negotiations between the city and the Salt Lake Police Association. To that
end, union President Lee Dobrowolski said he doesn't see a need for random
testing in light of the department's reasonable-suspicion policy, which he
added is seldom used but effective.

"I wonder if this is an effort to solve a problem that does not exist and
get publicity," said Dobrowolski, who'd prefer to see overstretched
municipal funds go toward putting more cops on the street.

Dinse said any push for random testing will require political support from
City Hall and, although Mayor Rocky Anderson declined comment for this
article, Dinse said the mayor has voiced support in the past. Anderson and
the police union have a history of brisk relations, which might explain his
reluctance to opine ahead of contract negotiations that will commence early
next year.

One city official familiar with the issue was willing to address
Dobrowolski's reservations on condition of anonymity. "We rely on police
officers to make life-and-death decisions," the official said. "I would
assume that they should have the same or higher standards for drug testing
than our city's garbage-truck drivers," who are subject to ongoing testing.
"Is it worth the money to test, or is it better to save the money and court
the risk?"