DRUG TESTING OF TROOPERS CUT BACK TO SAVE MONEY

BOSTON -- State Police officials said they have cut back on drug testing in
recent years, but said their program still follows federal guidelines and
takes into account tight budgets.

The revelation comes amid reports that two state troopers were allegedly
abusing drugs when they recently were arrested - Sgt. Timothy White for
reportedly putting a gun in his wife's mouth during a domestic dispute, and
Trooper Christopher P. Shields for allegedly robbing a Natick pharmacy at
gunpoint.

At a news conference Thursday announcing the charges against Shields,
Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley and State Police Col. Thomas
Foley called the arrests a coincidence, and said they did not believe it
was indicative of a wider problem with drugs in the department.

To save money, the department this year will conduct no more than 200
random tests on 2,333 employees, representing 6 to 8 percent of the total
work force, spokeswoman Lt. Marian McGovern said. She said the drug tests
cost between $42 and $200 each to administer.

Under a contract signed with the troopers' union, the State Police
Association of Massachusetts, the department was allowed to begin testing
troopers in 1998, both at random and when there was a "reasonable
suspicion" that an officer was abusing drugs.

Until 2000, troopers also were tested for drug use at their mandatory,
bi-annual physical examination, McGovern said. All State Police sworn
personnel were subject to the same testing, she said.

Nancy N. Delogu, counsel for the Institute for a Drug-Free Workplace, a
Washington, D.C., consortium of employers, trade organizations and drug
abuse researchers, disputed the State Police assertion that its drug
testing program meets federal guidelines. The U.S. Department of
Transportation has set the national standard for workplace drug testing at
50 percent, she told The Boston Globe.

Shields, a 16-year veteran, was arrested at a Worcester drug treatment
center Wednesday and charged with robbing a CVS pharmacy the day after
Christmas by showing a handgun and handing the clerk a note that read, "I
want all the OxyContin." He had been on medical leave since October after
injuring his back in a fall at the Weston barracks.

Shields was accused of robbing pharmacy of three partially filled bottles
of the powerful painkiller after he was arrested on shoplifting charges at
a Sudbury market last week.

Also last week, White, a former department spokesman and a member of the
State Police narcotics unit, was charged with assault with intent to murder
during the Jan. 27 domestic dispute in Stoughton that prosecutors said was
fueled by cocaine and marijuana use.