Drug testing... What's the real reason?

Great Debates
1

Ok, so I turned my ankle on some landscaping gravel that was on a sidewalk on company property. I wasn’t really hurt, but I reported it in case I had problems with it after standing on it all nite and wanted to see a doc the next day.

I was sent for a drug test.

I was concerned because a day or two before, I had swiped some hydrocodone that my mother had left over from a dental prescription because I suffer from chronic back pain that had become excruciating over the past few days, and I was afraid it would show up in my piss. It seems I really didn’t have anything to worry about, it’s been three days, I’ve worked two shifts, I know they have the results of the test back, and they haven’t demanded to see the prescription.

I was not, nor did my employer have any reason to suspect that I was under the influence of any chemical substance at the time of the accident.

Piss tests do not detect active drugs in your system. What they detect is the metabolites that are left in your body hours or even days after the effects of the drugs have worn off. But you can be denied workman’s compensation and even fired from your job if you test positive for these metabolites.
I think the only valid test for post accident screening would be a blood test that would show whether the employee had drugs actively in his/her system at the time. But most companies demand piss as well as blood.

I have arrived at the conclusion that post-accident drug testing is little more than a scam by insurance companies that provide workman’s comp to avoid paying valid claims. A person can smoke a joint on Saturday night and not be impaired Monday, get in and accident caused by a co-worker or by a hazardous condition in the workplace and be denied coverage and fired.

I’m not sure what the point behind pre-employment and random testing is. I think a person’s prior work record and on the job performance and behavior would be far more reliable indicators of whether a worker would be likely to be, um, impaired on the job.

So why are employers so concerned with their employees off-the-job behavior?

2

WAG here, but wouldn’t they be testing you hours or days after the accident? In my wayward past, I would often be ‘impaired’ for hours or even days after the initial effects of the drugs have worn off.

But many business’s are very afraid of being sued by injured empoyees who claim that there were unsafe conditions. Perhaps they are looking for a way to protect themselves. I mean, if it can be shown that you are the kind of person who would break the law and take illegal drugs, or wrongfully abuse prescription medication, then your credibility is suspect.

BTW, would an employee’s drug test be admissable in a civil court?

3

you have most of the answer in the OP. Companies can get a break on worker’s comp insurance if they conduct pre employment drug screens (often weed out folks who routinely use), post accident and other drug screens (some conduct random, others do after suspicion). Worker’s comp insurance is very expensive - for example, my SMALL company (4 employees, mostly office work) spends $700 annually for worker’s comp insurance. that’s nearly 1% of our annual budget (high if you understand that we only spend $500 annually for liability for folks who come onto our property and 400 for property damage). And the rates go up astronomically for those in more “dangerous” occupations.

while blood test do in fact give a more accurate picture of your current level of “influence”, it is NOT true that they ONLY show what you used before - alcohol, for example starts showing up pretty quickly. Urine is the by product of the cleansing of the blood, so if it’s in the urine, it was in the blood, in steadily decreasing levels.

And, by the way, keep in mind that if last night you really tied one on, as it were, you probably ARE still somewhat under the influence this morning. Pilots, for example, are forbidden to drink alcohol at all for a certain period of time before they expect to fly.

4

I, for one, think your feelings of violation are coming through your post. I too, know the feeling. Though I digress…

Ok, number one on my list here is the “scam” you’re seeing between the WC co’s and the Insurance co’s. The answer is no. Urine tests are cheap and easy, and probably cost the assay office approximately $10 if they own their own machine(that includes man-hours). They’re not making a mint off of injured people’s piss.

Number 2- I’ve never heard of a blood test being used concurrently with a urine test. It’s either urine, or hair.

Number 3- A blood test, AFAIK, will essentially detect the same metabolites and possibly some raw drug compunds in your system, though at a very heightened cost(maybe in the ballpark of $50 or more), and a MUCH longer time period to ge tthe test back. Also, since the body will break the drugs down rather quickly into it’s metabolite, you won’t get much more accuracy, unless the person is totally wacked-out loaded when tested and actively high.

Number 4- IMO, your off-work activities are germain to your privacy, however, it is also in the companies best interest to comply with WC laws, and their insurance CO’s guidelines.

OK, now as I see it, drug-testing is currently evolving,a nd will continue to evolve into a much more advanced science. Almost 80-90% of street drugs, including coke, LSD, Crank and alcohol are metabolized in 24-72 hours. I surmise that in the coming years, they will be able to pinpoint when you took said drug, and when you were tested. It would be expensive, and complicated to do so however.

The exception to the 24-72 hour drugs is, of course Marijuana. If you smoke a joint and are a light user, you might metabolize it as fast as 2 weeks, depending on your metabolism. Use it more, or have a slower metabolism and it could be a month or more. Now, if you’ve ever smoked pot, you know you’re not high the next day, or even 12 hours later most times, but sure as hell, it’ll show up in the urine assay, and you will be disciplined, or fired.

Being a former smoker, and an avid pro-marijuana supporter, I certainly do believe that it is just plain wrong to fire someone for something they did at a party a week and a half ago, but I don’t think there is the technology available, or at a low enough price to separate a recent high from a last week high. Currently in the move to decrim marijuana, there is also a move to downplay positive marijuana tests in situations like this(take this as tongue-in-cheek, as I’m pretty sure I deleted the E-mail I read this in several months ago).

Spooje- I’m not sure what you mean about a urine test standing up in Civil court. If you mean that if the worker sues the company in civil court for an injury and firing after testing dirty, then the answer is yes.

When you walk into the urine clinic, and sign all the waivers, you’ve given them permission to use your excrement against you. If it’s pre-hiring testing, you are given a window of 60 days before you can retest, and the company, IIRC, is required to look your application over and not automatically say no because you were dirty before(or, a false-positive). Most times, you won’t be given the job and it’s probably fruitless to try again, however the option is presented to you by law.

-Sam

5

Gawd, I meant if the worker sues the company over an accident, would the company be able to introduce the drug test, possibly to impeach the witness (the worker)?

6

Actually, GaWd, you’re half right. Pre-employment and random, it’s usually urine and/or hair. For post accident, the company I work for uses both, and I have a big-ass bruise with a blood blister in the middle of it on my arm to prove it. The phlebotomist butchered me…

7

Oh, and the scam I referred to wasn’t making money off of injured people’s piss. It was avoiding paying claims of people who were injured on the job due to a “positive drug test” which in fact may not test for drugs, but the by products after the drugs have left your system.

And spooje, if you were still impaired days after the drugs you were using had worn off, you must have had one gloriously misspent youth.

8

It isn’t just WC claims, it’s also to get government contracts. I work for a Fortune 500 company that does a significant amount of business with the Federal Government. The company has to have a documented drug-testing program (both random and incident-based) to be certified as a “Drug-Free Workplace” and thus eligible to bid on Fed. Govt. contracts.

That’s the War on Drugs for ya!

D.A.R.E = DRUGS ARE REALLY EXCELLENT

9

Sorry Agisofia, I hadn’t heard of a dual test for WC injuries. In my dealings with them in California, it’s a simple urine test.

Spooje, I thought so, and yes, they could use it in court.

And any co. that is a GSA contractor will also be required to provide a “Drug-free workplace” program with random testing and always testing after a safety violation.

-Sam

10

OK, here’s my next arguement against drug testing. It provides a disincentive against an employee to report an accident resulting in an injury,which could potentially mean a hazardous work condition going unreported. If you’re in an accident at work and hurt yourself badly enough to require medical attention, and nobody sees it happen and you know you’re going to have to take a piss test, you might just wait and go to a Doc in the Box after work or the next day, and if you haven’t met the deductible on your health insurance policy, you’re screwed. You get to pay for it. Or you might go ahead and file the WC claim, especially if you were injured badly enough you will have to miss work, and start pouring liquids through your system and hope that you can dilute the drug metabolited down to an undetectable level before you actually have to piss in that cup… Then explain to your boss why you didn’t report the accident at the time it happened.

Also, drug testing can provide a disincentive for companies not to fix hazardous conditions in the workplace, especially in lower-wage type jobs where a higher percentage of workers are likely to be pot-smokers. If they know that in a significant number of workplace injury cases, worker’s comp won’t pay because the employee may have smoked a joint over the weekend, so their premiums won’t go up, well, why spend the money to fix that pothole in the center aisle of the warehouse?

And yes, I did once work for a company that had this sort of general attitude toward the health and safety of their employees. This is the job that screwed up my back. My chiropractor came in and toured the plant because at the time he had four women who worked their in his office every week, and he wanted to know why. When he saw the conditions we worked under, he commented to the plant manager that the conditions were causing a lot of back problems and other health problems for the workers. The plant manager’s response was, “If they don’t like it, they can go work somewhere else.”

Great. I’ve just hijacked my own thread.