NURSING HOME ALARMED BY POT TESTS

Positive Marijuana Readings Traced to Prescription Drugs

TAZEWELL, Tenn. - A criminal investigation into how two dozen residents of
a county-run nursing home wound up testing positive for marijuana use
continued Monday as hospital officials insisted the initial test results
were incorrect.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation launched the probe Monday in
conjunction with the Claiborne County Sheriff's Department and the Tazewell
Police Department. Police began looking into the matter last week at the
request of one patient's family.

"We met with the TBI agents today and turned it over to them," Tazewell
Police Chief Dewayne Lovin said Monday.

The probe began last Thursday when the family of a male patient at the
Claiborne County Hospital and Nursing Home became concerned about a change
in his medical condition. They took him to the hospital's emergency room,
Lovin said.

A physician ordered a drug screen after examining the man, and his family
contacted police when the test was positive for marijuana, Lovin said.

Since then, all 98 nursing home residents have undergone urine drug
screens, and 24 of them have tested positive for marijuana, according to
hospital administrator Michael Hutchins.

However, at least one urine specimen that was re-tested by another
laboratory turned out to have been a "false positive" caused by a reaction
with a prescription drug, Hutchins said.

"The manufacturer of the test kit used in our laboratory informed us that
there are two medications that can cross-react and cause a false positive
result for marijuana," Hutchins said in a written statement. "We have
checked the medication history of all patients in the nursing home related
to these two medications and found that all patients testing positive are
currently receiving one of these medications."

The first patient's urine sample was sent to an independent laboratory for
confirmation, and the second result was negative for marijuana use,
Hutchins said.

"This leads us to believe that there is no indication of marijuana use in
our nursing home but that the positive results for marijuana were caused by
a cross-reacting medication," he said.

All the urine samples taken from nursing home patients are being sent to
the independent lab, Hutchins said.

The medication believed to have caused the inaccurate test results was
Protonix, which is used to control the production of stomach acids in
patients with reflux and other ailments, said Brandi Callebs, the
hospital's lab director.

Callebs said the kit in question is used only as a "qualitative test,"
which means it provides a "yes" or "no" answer as to whether certain drugs
are present in a urine sample. Such tests aren't 100 percent accurate on
their own, and further "quantitative testing" must be done by another
laboratory to confirm both the presence of drugs in a sample and the amount.

The kit used by the nursing home is made by Biosite, a San Diego-based
company that manufactures the kits for triage environments such as hospital
emergency rooms, according to the company's Web site. The kit, which yields
results in approximately 10 minutes, is used by 45 percent of U.S.
hospitals and emergency rooms.