Feds Table New Drug Testing Guidelines

A proposal by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services to expand drug testing of federal employees to include sampling of hair, saliva, and sweat has been tabled, reports NORML. The new guidelines were originally proposed in 2004, but stalled out after officials at several government agencies voiced concerns that the newer testing technologies weren’t reliable enough to justify the extra expense. Currently about 400,000 federal employees are drug tested using urinalysis – indeed, even traditional urine testing is not without problems since the tests can detect inactive drug metabolites, which are not indicative of current use or of intoxication. Among the problems associated with drug testing are false-positive results for, say, opiate use in people who regularly eat foods containing poppy seeds.

Saliva, hair, and sweat testing are more costly and present a variety of potential problems that may reduce the reliability of test results – including the kind of hair being tested, since there is some research that shows “higher concentrations of some drugs are found in dark hair when compared to blond or red hair,” reports the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration, which oversees federal drug testing guidelines. Indeed, it appears that it is harder to detect drug use in people with lighter, straighter hair, but relatively easier to determine in people with darker, or more coarse hair, leading some to charge that the test is racially biased, reports New York Newsday. Further, Bruce Goldberger, professor and director of toxicology at the University of Florida College of Medicine, told the daily that while the science of hair testing is reliable, the practice is unregulated, meaning that inconsistencies in methodology could create unreliable results. “Historically, this area of testing for drugs in the hair has not been regulated to any extent, so that methods and techniques haven’t been standardized,” he said.

In 2000, the feds spent $6.1 million testing just over 100,000 employees, NORML reports; in all, just 532 employees tested positive.