Adaptation to Workplace Drug Testing Policies
“The ubiquity of workplace drug testing is nothing new for my generation. Reflecting on my own work history, there were several times in which I was confronted with illicit drug screening and all but two employers required my signature on company drug-free policy agreements. In fact, the owner/proprietor of one of these latter companies was a daily drug user himself while the other business was a restaurant, which the food-service industry is notoriously known for their lack of formal or rigid drug-free policies.
Looking back, a particular moment stands out in my mind that speaks volumes on the effects of workplace drug-free policies. While taking a break with one of my managers on an uneventful workday, our conversation about the usual monotonous workings of the business slipped into some of our own personal problems things that were bugging us at the moment. My manager had been seemingly upset for the entire morning and I finally figured out why. On the previous day, she went home from work to find her husband shaved bald with not only the top of his head glowing from the handiwork of a razorblade but bald from head to toe. After the dirty looks and shock subsided, she soon learned that her husband, an illicit drug habitu? (namely marijuana), had made an attempt to escape the drug-free policies of the company that was buying out his current employer.
He and several of his coworkers in his department had all purchased “detox” products to flush out the recreational “toxins” in their bodies to prevent testing positive for illicit drugs via urinalysis as well as shaved themselves and purchased specialty products to remove “toxins” from hair (for the areas in the hard-to-reach nether-regions and eyebrows) to avoid testing positive via hair analysis. While raising the eyebrows of their employers, the “Mr. Clean” shave-therapy seemed to have worked as none of the bald-brothers-in-arms were terminated for initially breaking the new companys drug-free policy. Much to the dismay of my manager, who hoped the ordeal would bring her husband a father of two to limit his drug use or quit, the new policy only served to change the length of his hair, which he now kept cut very short, and also made him stock up on “detox” products such that they are readily available when he needs to pee clean or appear drug free when one examines his hair using toxicological measures.”
This is an excerpt of a recent research proposal aimed at identifying the incidence and prevalence of dodging drug testing via the utilization of countermeasure products available from local stores or on the Internet. According to the Drug Testing Index, a comprehensive ongoing assessment from the nations largest workplace drug testing firm Quest Diagnostics, the amount of affirmed samples utilizing such countermeasures are quite minimal. This contradicts the widespread use of these products as revealed in ethnographies by social science researchers including Kenneth Tunnell (see “Pissing on Demand“) and the information available via the National Household Survey of Drug Use and Health. The question remains: How have people adapted to workplace drug testing policies? If they have, how often are they successful?
I would like to open up this topic for debate and guidance for this line of research. At what point in the chain of custody is there a breakdown that allows tainted samples not to appear such official statistics? Is it just that the common result is an “invalid” test that must be repeated at the behest of employers?
- Exposure to psychoactive substances in women who request voluntary termination of pregnancy assessed by serum and hair testing
- Pharmacokinetics of disappearance of cocaine from hair after discontinuation of drug use
- High throughput analysis of drugs of abuse in hair by combining purposely designed sample extraction compatible with immunometric methods used for drug testing in urine
- Urine testing for norcodeine, norhydrocodone, and noroxycodone facilitates interpretation and reduces false negatives
- Current status of accreditation for drug testing in hair.
