Drug Testing Health Article

Definition

Drug testing is the assessing of drug use (or non-use) by a person. The drugs for which one tests fall into three main types: illegal drugs, alcohol, and performance-enhancing drugs. Illegal drugs include marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, and phencyclidine (PCP, the hallucinogen known as "angel dust"). Alcohol is, of course, a legal drug for adults, but since such activities as driving under its influence are illegal, it is sometimes very important to test for the level of alcohol in the bloodstream. Performance-enhancing drugs may be legal, but their use by athletes may be forbidden by the rules of an athletic association sponsoring a competition, rules designed to be fair to all the players.

Description

One line of attack in the "war against drugs" in the United States involves compulsory drug testing. Specific drug-test laws vary from state to state, but drug tests are commonly administered in schools, athletic competitions, and the workplace. When results of some tests are being evaluated, it is important to keep in mind the fact that sometimes legitimate prescription drugs for such conditions as arthritis and asthma can produce test results that falsely suggest illegal drug use.

Some schools test students in general for drug use; others focus on student athletes because drug use increases the risk of sports-related injury, and also because the use of performance-enhancing drugs would give the athletes who use them an unfair advantage over the other athletes. The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1995 that schools may test entire teams of student athletes, even if individual team members are not suspected of using drugs. On the state level, courts are divided on the circumstances under which such testing can legally

occur. Some states provide more protection than others for the rights of students to privacy and due process.

In the 1970s, the issue of performance-enhancing drug use among athletes came into the forefront. Many athletes use performance-enhancing drugs (ergogenic drugs) such as anabolic steroids, growth hormone, and erythropoietin. Some athletes also use stimulants because of their ability to mask fatigue. Athletes are tested for use of forbidden drugs at many major meets.

The federal government laid the groundwork for drug testing in the workplace when, in the late 1980s, it initiated mandatory drug testing of federal employees, and began to require that government contractors establish drug-testing programs for their workers. Today, many large companies in the United States administer drug tests to their employees, but testing in smaller organizations is significantly less common.

Some workplace drug-testing policies are considerably stricter than others. Federal employees can be subject to compulsory random drug tests, as can private-sector employees with responsibility for the lives and safety of others. It is obviously not as dangerous to the public for the person raking leaves in a park to take illegal drugs as for an airplane pilot, a truck driver, or a person producing atomic weapons. Much workplace testing is conducted under such circumstances as the following:

• Pre-employment. Employers offer employment on condition of a negative drug test.
• Reasonable suspicion. Employers test an employee after direct observation of drug use or possession, patterns of erratic behavior, or drug-related arrests.
• Post-accident. Employees involved in accidents are sometimes asked to take a drug test immediately after an incident to determine whether alcohol or drug use was a factor.
• Treatment follow-up. Employees returning to work after treatment for substance abuse are often subject to follow-up testing.

Urine is the most common sample used in drug testing. Urine tests for federal employees are first analyzed by laboratories certified by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and any samples that come up positive are double-checked by gas chromatograph mass spectrometry, the "gold standard" test that identifies the exact molecular structure of a substance. Some private employers also follow SAMHSA procedures and use federal laboratories for testing, but others use commercial drug-testing kits. These commercial kits have often been criticized for generating a high rate of false positives. The problems associated with urine testing have sparked interest in alternative techniques, such as the testing of hair, sweat, or saliva.