DRUG TESTS ON THE JOB ARE RISING, FOR MANY REASONS

There is no shortage of reasons employers test their workers for
drugs. At one company, an employee high on marijuana forgot to lock
the wheels on his forklift and it dropped five feet off a loading
dock, while employees at another built a crystal meth lab in the back
of a truck.

Workers who use drugs raise a company's insurance costs, steal
equipment and scare away clients.

"The drug and alcohol issue is a concern for America," says Mary
Wheeler, co-owner of Wheeler Landscaping in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, who
began screening job applicants five years ago and now randomly tests
her 76 employees. "Until you have a drug-free workplace you don't
realize how prevalent it is."

Companies lose $82 billion in productivity each year because of
substance abuse, the federal government estimates. Now, a growing
number of employers are fighting back with workplace drug programs.
They say better technology has made drug screening more reliable,
while insurance discounts and government grants have made it cheaper.

Screening saves

The math is simple. More than three-quarters of America's 14.8
million drug users have jobs. Drug users are almost four times as
likely to be involved in a workplace accident as sober workers and
five times as likely to file a workers' compensation claim, according
to government data. Drug users miss more days of work, show up late
and change jobs more often. The cost of a drug test, meanwhile, is
usually less than $50.

While drug programs are slowly becoming more popular, they still
rarely make it to the top of an entrepreneur's priority list, says
Richard Chaifetz, chief executive of Com-Psych, a company that helps
employers set up drug screening and rehabilitation programs.

"Small-business owners will typically say I know my employees very
well, nobody is abusing substances here," he says. Employers also
often worry about violating their workers' privacy or hurting company
morale by appearing distrustful.

Many do not know that almost 6 percent of all employees randomly
screened and 4 percent of job applicants typically test positive,
according to Quest Diagnostics, the largest laboratory. (Technology
is so refined now, Quest said, that false positives almost never happen.)

When Cassie Oney, human resources director at PreCheck, a private
investigation firm in Houston, randomly tested employees for the
first time last year, there were no indications that anyone would
test positive. Still, three clerical workers, or about 4 percent of
the staff, failed the test.

"In H.R. you try to get into that 'nothing surprises me' mode, but I
was still extremely surprised that it was those three people," Oney
said. "One of the individuals in particular had been doing a great
job. The other two had been long-term employees."

Pre-testing popular

Random tests are more prevalent today than they were five years ago,
experts say, but they are still fairly rare.

Employers who do not want the bother or expense of randomly testing
their employees opt for pre-employment screening instead. Viewed as
the simplest and cheapest way to filter out drug users,
pre-employment tests are also considered an effective deterrent.

"Employees who use drugs are less likely to apply at a company that
has a drug-testing program," said Nancy N. Delogu, a labor lawyer at
Littler Mendelson in Washington, and co-author of the Guide to State
and Federal Drug-Testing Laws. "What small-business owners find is
they're not getting the cream of the crop, in terms of applicants, if
they don't do testing."

After accidents

Tests administered after a workplace accident are also considered an
effective way to filter out drug users, especially because a large
percentage of all industrial accidents can be attributed to drug and
alcohol abuse. Some workers' compensation insurers require
post-accident drug testing, and a few will even refuse to pay a
patient's benefits if they find that drugs or alcohol caused an accident.

Drug tests yield results immediately or within a couple of days,
depending on whether urine, hair or saliva samples are used. Urine
and hair samples are sent to a laboratory, and take two or three days
to process. Saliva tests can be administered on the spot by the
employer, and the swab shows instant results.

Avoiding tests

Many business owners avoid giving drug tests altogether. Greg
Phillips, founder of AirTegrity Wireless, a maker of broadband
equipment in Stateline, Nev., says he does not screen job applicants
or current staff members. "There's a lot of trust within the group,
and we've worked together for a long time," Phillips said of his 22 employees.

Other employers worry about violating workers' privacy.

Ethical concerns notwithstanding, testing employees or job candidates
for drug use is perfectly legal. Heather Gatley, general counsel at
the human resources company AlphaStaff Group, says it is illegal to
fire a worker or reject an applicant for discriminatory reasons, like
race, age or gender. But singling someone out for drug use is not
considered discriminatory.

In some cases, financial incentives trump all other concerns.

Companies in accident-prone industries usually want to maintain a
drug-free workplace to keep their insurance rates down. Both health
and workers' compensation premiums fluctuate depending on how often a
company files for claims.