GOV'T TO OVERHAUL EMPLOYEE DRUG TESTS

NEW YORK - The federal government is planning to overhaul its employee drug
testing program to include scrutiny of workers' hair, saliva and sweat, a
shift that could spur more businesses to revise screening for millions of
their own workers.

The planned changes, long awaited by the testing industry, reflect
government efforts to be more precise in its drug screening and to
outmaneuver a small but growing subset of workers who try to cheat on
urine-based tests.

Some businesses have already adopted alternative testing, despite criticism
by privacy advocates. But others have held back, partly awaiting government
standards.

Alternative testing methods would give employers more certainty about the
timing and scope of drug usage than is now possible solely with urine
sampling, said Robert Stephenson II, an official with the federal Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

That could be particularly valuable in situations like investigations of
on-the-job accidents, to determine not just whether an employee uses drugs
but if usage occurred recently enough to be a cause.

Alternative testing will "really ramp up our ability to increase the
deterrent value of our program, which is basically the whole bottom line,"
said Stephenson, director of the agency's Division of Workplace Programs.

Stephenson said it would likely be a year until the new policies take
effect for the nation's 1.6 million federal workers. The agency, known as
SAMHSA, sets guidelines and administers the testing.

All federal workers are eligible to be tested. SAMHSA, a division of the
Department of Health and Human Services, tests fewer
than 200,000 workers a year. The decision about who is tested often depends
on the sensitivity of their job.

But because its standards are followed by regulatory agencies who conduct
testing in industries they oversee, SAMHSA is responsible for about 6.5
million of the 40 million workplace drug tests done each year by U.S.
employers.

The agency's testing standards are also widely followed by thousands of
other employers, public and private.

The proposed changes are due out "literally any day," Stephenson said. He
would not discuss details of the proposals before their release.

Changes would not likely go into effect until early next year, after the
agency solicits public comment, finalize guidelines and prepare for the
transition. Once that happens, many other employers could follow suit,
government and industry officials say.

"There's no doubt about it that SAMHSA's guidelines become the standard for
the industry whether you're a regulated employer or not, and so what SAMHSA
does will have wide-ranging impact," said Kenneth Kunsman, a marketing
executive with OraSure Technologies Inc., which makes a saliva testing kit.

More employers are already using alternative testing. But many have held
back because of the lack of standards, said Laura Shelton, executive
director of the Drug and Alcohol Testing Industry Association, which
represents test manufacturers and labs.

Alternative tests hold appeal because their accuracy cannot be foiled with
products sold to mask drug residue in urine, say company and government
officials, noting that the tests are extremely accurate.

But privacy advocates express doubts, pointing to cases of police officers
and others who allege false positives because their hair absorbed drugs
around them, as well as research suggesting dark hair soaks up more drug
byproducts than light hair.

"There's a lot that would need to be done before these types of tests, in
our minds, would be sufficient to used for workplace testing," said Jeremy
Gruber, legal director for the National Workrights Institute, an employee
advocacy group.

The screening industry has worked in recent years to promote alternative tests.

Casino operators and local police departments were among the first to use
hair testing for pre-employment screening because it allows detection of
drug use over much longer periods than urine. It is also now used by
employers including Kraft Foods Inc. and brewer Anheuser-Busch Cos.

"Urine tests were fallible in a variety of ways," said Alan Feldman, a
spokesman for MGM Mirage, which adopted pre-employment hair testing for all
its 42,000 workers in 1993. "We want our people to be sharp."

Psychemedics Corp., the largest hair testing company, has about 2,600
corporate clients and last year did about 400,000 tests, vice president
Bill Thistle said.

Saliva testing has only been marketed for workplace drug testing for a few
years. Companies including paper manufacturer Georgia-Pacific Corp. have
adopted it.

Kunsman said the labs affiliated with his firm this year expect to process
60,000 to 70,000 workplace drug tests a month.

Government officials and testing industry executives say the new tests are
less a replacement for urine screening than as additional tools in
employers' arsenal.

"In different cases, one specimen may be better than the other," said Dr.
Donna Bush, drug testing team leader at SAMHSA's Center for Substance Abuse
Prevention.

Saliva testing, done using a swab that looks much like a toothbrush but
with a pad instead of bristles, is best at detecting drug use within the
past one or two days.

Hair testing, in which a sample about the thickness of a shoelace is
clipped at the root from the back of the head, allows detection of many
drugs used as far back as 3 months.

Sweat testing, in which workers are fitted with a patch that is worn for
two weeks, is used to screen people who have returned to work after drug
treatment.