Marijuana leads other drugs detected in workplace testing, analysis finds

Marijuana use on company time fell in Hawaii last year, but it is still the drug that turns up most often in workplace drug testing.

A new statistical analysis by Diagnostic Laboratory Services Inc. found that marijuana use was down to 2.8 percent for all of 2012, from 3.1 percent in 2011. However, marijuana use inched upward on a quarterly basis, rising to 2.6 percent in the fourth quarter from 2.5 percent in the third quarter.

Use of crystal meth­am­pheta­mine was flat at 0.7 percent in each of the past two years, said Carl Linden, scientific director of toxicology at DLS.

However, meth use inched upward in each month of 2012 and was at 0.9 percent in the fourth quarter, up from 0.8 percent in the third quarter.

The DLS analysis showed relatively low cocaine and opiate use in the past two years. Cocaine use was down to 0.2 percent in 2012 from 0.3 percent in 2011, and down to 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter from 0.2 percent in the third quarter.

Opiate use was 0.2 percent in 2012, unchanged from 2011, and rose to 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter from 0.1 in the third quarter.

The use of synthetic urine to mask drug use dropped to 0.9 percent in 2012 from 1.5 percent the previous year. Use of fake urine was the same in the third and fourth quarters, at 0.8 percent.

"Many of these tests are pre-employment," Linden said, and employers have the option to not hire that individual.

In the case of synthetic urine use by an already employed person, some companies do terminate employees, but "our primary recommendation is to request an immediate observed collection for a second sample," meaning someone would monitor the employee providing a urine sample.

"They’ve given up their right of privacy by adulterating the first specimen," Linden said.

The sample size on which the DLS analysis is based typically reflects between 7,000 and 10,000 drug tests administered for about 1,000 companies that use DLS’ services.

"The only massaging of the data (we do) is to take out judicial and treatment and clinical testing," Linden said, in order for the analysis to reflect only workplace drug testing. DLS provides testing for substance abuse treatment centers, doctors, hospitals and the Judiciary, and "those (results) would aberrate the workplace results."

The number of employers using drug testing for pre-employment screening has been on the rise for years.

"Since I’ve been doing this, I’ve seen drug testing increase," said Beth Busch, organizer of three job fairs each year including Job Quest at Blaisdell Center today from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

"It’s easier to do, it’s cheaper to do and it’s smarter to do," she said.

Any employer who might be exposed to litigation based on its employees’ drug use should be drug-testing potential hires, she said.

When unemployment was at its highest, drug use went up, she recalled.

Invoking the name of the most high-profile drug-testing case at the moment, Busch cited Lance Armstrong’s long-awaited admission of blood doping.

"You’re just not going to get away with it; you’re going to get caught," she said.

Pre-employment drug testing typically is done after a candidate accepts a company’s offer of employment. "Then the more invasive screening takes place," said Carl Hinson, director of workforce development in the human resources department at Hawaii Pacific Health.

That could include a criminal background check and a physical exam, "and it’s at that point you’d submit to drug screening," Hinson said. "If you don’t want the position, you don’t have to participate."

Some people, concerned with being "exposed," will drop out of the process, he said.

Some people may be taking medications they are unaware contain narcotics that will register a positive result in drug testing.

Hawaii Pacific Health has an "interactive process" in which a medical review officer will meet with the individual to discuss prescriptions and make it clear that "when someone is on a narcotic, they cannot come to work."

Use of synthetic drugs known as "bath salts" and "spice" is on the rise, but state and federal laws only allow for workplace drug testing for amphetamines, cocaine, marijuana and opiates, said Linden of DLS.

While not among the typical drug test for 10 illegal substances, tests for bath salts and spice can be physician-ordered, Linden said.

So-called "fitness for duty" testing could be ordered when "someone is demonstrating behavior which is not how they normally behave, or heaven forbid they smell of alcohol, or there’s a witness" who has seen them take drugs, said Hawaii Pacific Health’s Hinson.

Hinson will make a 1 p.m. presentation at the Job Quest fair titled "Where the Jobs Are," which will discuss health care industry jobs that do not require medical or nursing degrees and the positions and training that are available in Hawaii.