RANDOM DRUG TESTING IS ROUTINE FOR NYPD

Police In Big Apple Get No 2nd Chances

Toronto Officers Outraged At Proposal

When a computer randomly picks New York City police officers for their
"dole" test, as it is nicknamed, they head to the department's medical
division building and get down to business.

"You pee in a bowl or whatever it is, pee in a cup, and then you go back to
your command," says NYPD Detective Bernard Gifford. "It's routine that drug
testing is given to all NYPD personnel, very routine, common practice," he
says, pausing on the line yesterday from Manhattan long enough to confirm
that 20 officers were "doing dole today."

In Canada, though, workplace drug testing is anything but routine, which is
why retired Ontario justice George Ferguson's call to make drug tests
mandatory for Toronto Police Service officers being promoted or transferred
to "sensitive or high-risk" units has sparked such an uproar. In New York,
"You fail, you're fired," Gifford said.

"You're brought up on department charges and you're fired. No second chances."

He couldn't say how many of the force's 40,000 employees, including 23,000
uniformed officers, flunk the test and don't get a second chance. The test
checks for illegal drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and opiates, and is
administered randomly and pre-promotion.

"You shouldn't be doing drugs if you're a cop," said Gifford. "What's the
big deal?"

It's a big deal here, says Gerard Seijts, an associate professor of the
Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario who has
researched the effectiveness of workplace drug tests.

"This would really be huge if they go along with this; it would be major,"
Seijts said.

In his report to Chief Julian Fantino, made public this week, Ferguson
singled out the NYPD's random drug testing measures as being "effective and
fair to all," but goes on to cite "recent decisions made by Canadian courts
and pronouncements made by both the Canadian and Ontario Human Rights
Commissions (that) would appear to effectively preclude the introduction of
a similar program in this province."

Instead, Ferguson said in his report, he is satisfied that a program in
which drug testing becomes a prerequisite for promotion or transfer to
sensitive or high-risk areas, such as drug squads, "is not only appropriate
but essential in the interests of public and officer safety." The
recommendation was one of 32 aimed at helping to stamp out future
misconduct and corruption and shoring up public confidence in Toronto's police.

Rick McIntosh, president of the Toronto Police Association, immediately
denounced the drug-testing proposal as an "absolute non-starter."

Yesterday, he said he was getting a lot of negative feedback from his
members about the proposal, including from one drug squad officer who was
recently involved in an arrest of a man with seven kilos of cocaine.

"When they opened it up, some of the dust from the coke came out and a
couple of guys breathed it in, and it got on their face and on their
shirts, and they brushed it off -- so what does that mean? Or what if you
are on the major crime unit and drug squad and you're out there in an
undercover capacity and guys are smoking grass in front of you, not that
you're necessarily smoking it ... you're not arresting these people because
it's leading to other things ... and it shows up in a test."

Seijts says resistance to drug testing is understandable. He says he has
seen little evidence to suggest that workplace drug tests are an effective
way to deter "counterproductive behaviours on the job."

He points to possible "legal issues" and refers to the Ontario Human Rights
Commission's policy that drug testing should be used only in limited
circumstances.

"The primary reason for conducting such testing should be to measure
impairment. Even testing that measures impairment can be justified only if
it is demonstrably connected to performance of the job, for example, if an
employee occupies a safety-sensitive position," the policy reads.

Imperial Oil is one company that tests for marijuana use by employees who
hold safety-sensitive positions, "people who have a key or direct role in
an operation where an impaired performance could result in a catastrophic
incident," company spokeswoman Kim Fox said yesterday. "These include
control board operators in our major manufacturing facilities, drilling
supervisors, pipeline control board operators, those sorts of roles." The
policy would cover less than a tenth of the company's 6,000 positions.

"But it's marijuana only; we don't test for other drugs. It has to do with
being able to determine levels of impairment, and right now we recognize
that the test we use for marijuana, we believe, recognizes levels of
impairment, whereas we haven't found other tests yet for other drugs that
would test for impairment."

Still, Seijts questions the point even if the purpose is to detect impairment.

"You could have used the drugs two or three weeks before ... it takes a
while to get out of the system, but that doesn't mean you're impaired. I
can do the job; why should I be penalized?"

But the NYPD's Gifford says officers are armed with guns, making high-risk,
split-second decisions, so if drug use is showing up in a police officer's
sample that should be of enough concern to a police department.

He accepts, as well, that drug testing by police shows the community that
this is a force that walks the talk.

Gifford was just bumped up a rank himself, he said.

"I took a random test and I just took a promotion urine test. Why not? I've
nothing to hide."