CITY, COUNTY APPROACH DRUG TESTS DIFFERENTLY

Anyone in a "safety sensitive" position with the city of Charleston - such
as police officers or garbage truck drivers - must submit to random drug
screens.

Their Kanawha County counterparts have no such policy. Does this mean that
city workers are inherently safer because they may be tested at any time?
Or is the county simply following a different approach, one that depends on
probable cause to drug test an employee?

Charleston Mayor Jay Goldman pressed for passage of the random policy late
last year. After intense lobbying by Councilman David Molgaard, the
ordinance was changed to give already-hired employees a second chance at a
failed screen, provided the employee paid his own way to a treatment program.

"All we're trying to do is ensure a safe workplace," Goldman said. "We
don't operate on the oral history of what's gone on here for 100 years.

"As municipal judge I saw a lot of people who abused drugs as well as
alcohol. It's a social problem, a workplace problem. It's the right thing
to do."

Kanawha County Commissioner Kent Carper, meanwhile, says he is not
necessarily opposed to random testing on constitutional grounds, but he
sees no practical reason to implement it. Courts have largely upheld a
company's right to implement drug tests.

"Employees aren't serfs," Carper said. "They're employees. I just don't see
anything that causes me that type of concern right now. Politically it's a
great thing to do, to go around and say you're fighting drugs by making
people take drug tests."

Carper says the county has other tough questions to tackle right now, such
as communications between sheriff's deputies.

He says he and fellow Commissioners Dave Hardy and Hoppy Shores could
probably impose a countywide policy, but the going might be tough without
the full cooperation of the sheriff and other elected officials.

County government officials largely possess more autonomy through their
elected status, Carper said.

Carper said he would listen to a drug-testing proposal from Sheriff Dave
Tucker if one came his way. That proposal would need to include detailed
cost estimates, he said.

Prospective city employees who fail the initial drug test don't get another
chance to apply.

Others looking for a job have simply declined to take the test, knowing
they would fail.

Six of nine applicants for public work positions simply walked away earlier
this summer when notified they would have to take the test.

The city both randomly tests and spot tests, Goldman said, if a department
head decides someone is behaving oddly.

The mayor said he did not see drug tests as a civil rights infringement.

"Most industry uses it," he said. "It's very prevalent."