If you're looking for an investment tip, buy stock in the drug testing industry. In the 1995 Seattle yellow pages, 20 companies are listed under the category "Drug Detection and Testing," up from 16 in the 1994 issue. The reason for this growth is increased federal demands for workplace drug testing. A law which took effect in January of this year requires all agencies receiving federal money to perform random drug tests, including alcohol tests, on safety-sensitive employees. This has affected some 4,000 King County Metro employees, mostly bus drivers, 50 percent of whom will have to be tested each year. Federal drug testing regulations also affect aviation, railroad, and maritime employees, and in 1996, all employees with commercial driver licenses will have the honor of peeing in a jar.

Although nearly everyone favors workplace safety, random urine tests in the workplace are a piss-poor way to encourage safety, so poor in fact that they were not even endorsed by the conservative American Medical Association, which has recommended impairment testing.

Impairment testing involves playing a short computer game involving hand-eye coordination or mental sharpness. If your instant score is substantially lower than your average, it probably means you aren't fit for work that day, valuable information if you're operating a bulldozer. For political reasons, however, the War on Drugs seems to have second-fiddled impairment testing.

The most questionable aspect of drug testing is the variety of false positives or negatives that are possible. Poppy seed bagels, second-hand marijuana smoke, and lab errors might disgrace any teetotaler, according to William Holstein, a chemical engineer, in an article written for the New York Times (Nov. 28, 1993). However, Ruth Klomp, a marketing specialist for the Work Clinic, a firm doing urine testing in King County, assures instead that false positives are a "misconception" and that lab personnel "have never made a mistake since I've been here."

But no matter how careful the lab workers are, Klomp says urine tests only cover five kinds of drugs: amphetamines, marijuana, cocaine, opiates, and PCP. A forklift operator on LSD would not test positive. Furthermore, a variety of means to dodge drug tests is available. Abbie Hoffman's book Steal This Urine Test gives advice for artful test-dodgers, and shops such as Herbal Alternatives in Wallingford sell herbal concoctions to cleanse those THC residues from your bladder. Drug testing will also not show psychological difficulties or fatigue, which cause more accidents than intoxication. "If you just had a fight with your wife, and you were troubled and distracted, you might not be safe operating dangerous machinery, but a drug test would never show it," notes Sally Soriano, former safety manager at the local maritime company Western Pioneer. Soriano was layed-off in 1993 after voicing concerns about what she viewed as an intimidating new drug testing policy in the company. Western Pioneer boss Jan Koslowski did not respond to a request for an interview.

Cost is a factor in favor of impairment tests. Urine samples require laboratory analysis, which typically costs a company $30 to $40 per single employee test. On the other hand, impairment tests can be given daily for a year at a cost of as little as 50 cents per test. Other savings are more impressive: during the first year of using impairment tests the California Company R.F. White experienced a drop of 64 percent in worker compensation claims for injuries.

Cause For Concern
Another grounds for upset over drug tests is the inequality between two of America's favorite drugs, alcohol and marijuana. Pat Engrissei, a shop steward for the Amalgamated Transit Workers Union Local 587, wrote the following scenario for the 587 News Review: "You can get roaring drunk on Friday night, do it again on Saturday night, and drink half a bottle of Wild Turkey watching Sunday afternoon football. But you'll test clean on Monday morning, and go to work.... However, if you share a joint with a half dozen friends at a Friday night party, you're going to test dirty on Monday morning, and you're out."

Because marijuana is illegal, use is considered abuse in the US. The trend in most other industrialized nations is toward decriminalization of marijuana and hashish. Possession of the drug is permitted in Holland, Spain, Poland, and most recently Germany.

Firings due to drug test results can tear apart the social fabric of a company. One employee at an area freight company, who requested anonymity, said in an interview, "We had a crane driver who was really good. I'd trust him with a backhoe in my backyard. But he was a social user, and he got fired." The employee estimated that in this company of roughly 200 workers, close to 40 workers have quit or been laid off due to drug tests in the past two years. If experienced employees are disappearing due to smoking a joint days before, safety may decline rather than improve.

So perhaps safety isn't really the idea behind drug testing. After all, corporate America has lined up behind drug testing, but since when have corporate lobbyists pressed for increased workplace safety regulations?

Thanks to the Seattle ACLU for providing leads for this article.

Download the RealAudio Player to hear the Burroughs quote above.

DECATUR, ILLINOIS. The first trial of 7 out of 50 workers and their supporters arrested for blocking trucks at a plant gate at the A. E. Staley food processing plant in summer 1994 resulted in victory for the workers. The trial was yet another episode in the bitter struggle prompted by a two year lockout by the British-owned firm. The workers were found innocent of obstructing police, and of two counts of mob action, but were found guilty of one count of tresspass. (Staley Workers Solidarity Committee)

Have a Labor-related story to tell? Good news or bad.. send it to Doug Collins WAfreepress@gmail.com and he'll tell the world.

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Contents on this page were published in the August/September, 1995 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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