ECONOMY SLOWS SPREAD OF DRUG TESTS

They are the staples of a modern-day job search: a polished resume, glowing
references and a clean urine sample.

Without fulfilling that last criteria for a satisfactory drug screen,
applicants at many U.S. companies can forget about employment.

In the almost two decades since the federal government launched its
"drug-free workplace" promotions, tests for illicit drugs have become
standard for thousands of employers. The tests have been credited with
everything from higher productivity to decreased worker compensation claims.

Tests are given to 25 million people annually, with an additional 25
million workers subject to screening.

However, as thousands of displaced workers hunt for new jobs in the current
economic slump and hiring has slowed, the $737 million drug-testing
industry's expansion in workplaces has slowed accordingly.

Some employers also are less willing to spend money for drug testing if
they do not believe it contributes to the bottom line.

Growth of the drug testing industry, which averaged more than 12.5 percent
annually during the 1990s, has tapered off to only about 1 percent a year.

Laboratories also struggle to provide accurate testing results despite
"counterproducts" -- the array of additives, cleansers and gizmos, readily
available on the Internet, that employees can use to circumvent a positive
drug test. Critics question whether businesses reap tangible benefits from
the urine-in-a-cup routine.

Workplace drug tests -- primarily of job applicants, but also of existing
employees, in some cases -- took off during the "just say no" era of the
1980s, with heavy promotion by the federal government. They typically
detect opiates, cocaine derivatives, barbiturates, methamphetamine and
marijuana, revealing drug use from several days or perhaps even months earlier.

Sixty-one percent of companies now screen job applicants, and 50 percent
test their existing employees, according to the American Management
Association's most recent survey in 2001. That is down from the 1996 peak,
when 68 percent of employers screened candidates.

Meldron Young, the association's human resources practice consultant, said
drug tests remain a standard element of most employers' hiring procedures.

However, the weak economy has prompted businesses to review spending. Some
have eliminated drug screens for employees whose duties do not pose safety
risks.

"They probably won't waste their money trying to do it," Young said. "You
have people that are moving into the upper echelons of corporate America
now that kind of take the stance that if it's not affecting the person's
performance, it's not an issue."

Joseph Halligan, chief executive of Haltom City, Texas-based PharmChem,
linked the downturn in testing, at least in part, to the current hiring slump.

"If you think about the amount of hiring being done at the moment, needless
to say, that segment of the business is down," Halligan said.

Although the notion has a common-sense appeal that drug users are bad
employees, Young said companies generally have not quantified the
before-and- after results of their anti-drug campaigns.

Without evidence of drug testing's advantages to their own operations, some
managers are less willing than they used to be to spend roughly $30 apiece
to test applicants and employees, he said.

"Employers right now are so in survival mode," Young said. "It doesn't
contribute to the bottom line right now."