Are your employee drug tests accurate? - Safety and Health

HR Magazine, Jan, 2003 by Diane Cadrain

* Selling, giving away, distributing or marketing urine intended to defraud a drug test.

* Attempting to defeat a test by spiking or substituting a sample.

* Adulterating a sample.

* Possessing or selling adulterants.

But that's about it for prosecutions under the laws. In Oregon, for example, Rep. Robert Patridge says he hasn't even checked to see whether anyone has been prosecuted under the state bill he sponsored in 2001. "We primarily set it up as a deterrent, as a safe workplace tool, and as an accountability issue," he says.

Loopholes in Federal Guidelines

Current federal guidelines, led by Department of Transportation (DOT) standards (widely considered the gold standard), may not be casting a tight enough net around test fraud. For example, current rules don't require testing for adulteration and dilution: Employers have to request it.

A set of proposed HHS rules would change that, requiring "specimen validity testing" for all urine 4 samples. Officials expect that proposal to pass, but the process is slow.

Another limitation of the current rules is that they may not be finding all the folks who dilute their urine. Dilution is by far a bigger problem than adulteration, says Kadehjian. The DOT guidelines consider a specimen diluted only if it's eight times more diluted than normal.

"There are sanctions only if the urine is so dilute it can't be human," says Kadehjian. "Specimens below the dilute cutoff don't happen easily. And the only sanction for diluted but otherwise acceptable specimens is that the next time a specimen is demanded of that donor, it may be collected under direct observation. Obviously, direct observation is pointless if a person has taken in a lot of water to dilute their specimen."

SAMI's Smith disagrees that the dilution standard is too lax. "The cutoff is extra generous, but some of the population produces that kind of urine. People on Weight Watchers have to drink 12 8-ounce glasses of water in a 12-hour period," she says. "I don't think the government should change the dilution criteria. They would pick up a number of people because of their dietary and fluid intake."

But Smith acknowledges that cheating is still going on.

The fact that current federal standards make it hard to catch frauds doesn't mean that employers' hands are tied. You can ask for specimen validity testing even if it is not required. "The vast majority of employers do it," says Smith. "It doesn't cost a lot more."

And employers can set their own stricter standards for adulteration and dilution.

"Private companies often forget that they can have a more stringent program," says Kadehjian.

"They can request the lab to look for adulteration and dilution at stricter cutoff levels."

Kadehjian cites the case of a tanker that ran aground in the Mississippi River, The employee at the helm tested negative for drug use under Coast Guard regulations, but positive under the employer's own more stringent cutoff. The employer discharged the employee, and the court upheld the discharge, citing the public policy against workplace drug use.