Pubdate: Fri, 14 Dec 2012
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2012 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Author: Paul Armentano
Note: Paul Armentano is deputy director for the National Organization
for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and co author of Marijuana Is Safer:
So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?
Page: A27

LET'S RETHINK WORKPLACE POT TESTING

VOTERS have declared that it is time to rethink our marijuana
policies. It's also time to rethink the practice of drug testing for
pot.

The enactment of Initiative 502, which legalized recreational
marijuana use in Washington state, is an ideal opportunity for
employers to reexamine their drug-testing policies regarding
employees' off the job cannabis use. Those who consume alcohol legally
and responsibly while off the job do not suffer sanctions from their
employers unless their work performance is adversely affected.
Employers should treat those Washingtonians who consume cannabis
legally while away from the workplace similarly.

Programs that mandate the random testing of employees' urine for
alleged traces of drug residue are invasive and ineffective. They
neither identify workers' who may be impaired nor do they contribute
to a safe work environment.

Immunoassay testing, the standard technology utilized in workplace
urinalysis, relies on the use of antibodies (proteins that will react
to a particular substance or a group of very similar substances) to
document whether a specific reaction occurs. Therefore, a positive
result on an immunoassay test presumes that a certain quantity of a
particular substance may be present in the sample, but it does not
actually identify the presence of the substance itself.

Why is this distinction significant? It's significant because the
consumption of many non-illicit drug products, from certain types of
bagels to baby shampoos, may also trigger similar reactions on the
immunoassay test. These incidences are known as false positives. That
is why experts recommend that a more specific chemical test, known as
chromatography, be performed in order to confirm any preliminary
analytical test results. However, because this test is far more
expensive than immunoassay testing, many private employers elect to
skip this process altogether.

But even this latter test possesses serious limitations. In
particular, conventional urinalysis - even when confirmed - only
detects the presence of inert drug metabolites, non-psychoactive
by-products that linger in the body's blood and urine well after a
substance's mood-altering effects have subsided. That is why the U.S.
Department of Justice acknowledges: "A positive test result, even when
confirmed, only indicates that a particular substance is present in
the test subject's body tissue. It does not indicate abuse or
addiction; recency, frequency, or amount of use; or
impairment."

A positive test result for carboxy THC, marijuana's primary
metabolite, provides little if any substantive information to
employers. That is because carboxy THC, unlike most other drug
metabolites, is fat-soluble and may remain detectable in urine for
days, weeks or, in some rare cases, months after a person has ceased
using cannabis. Most other common drug metabolites are water soluble
and therefore undetectable some 24 hours or so after ingestion.

In short, a positive test result for cannabis does not provide any
definitive information regarding an employee's frequency of cannabis
use, when he or she last consumed it, or whether he or she may have
been under the influence of the substance at the time the drug
screening was administered.

Aside from the procedure's practical limitations, there are larger
philosophical questions raised by random workplace drug testing.
Studies indicate that employees who engage in cannabis use in their
off hours are little different from their peers. Their workplace
performance seldom differs from their co-workers, many of whom consume
alcohol, and they do not pose an increased safety risk.

Writing in the journal Addiction, investigators at the University of
Victoria reviewed 20 years of published literature pertaining to the
efficacy of workplace drug testing, with a special emphasis on
marijuana. "[I]t is not clear that heavy cannabis users represent a
meaningful job safety risk unless using before work or on the job,"
they concluded. "Urinalysis testing is not recommended as a diagnostic
tool to identify employees who represent a job safety risk from
cannabis use."

So why are Washington employers still engaging in it?
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MAP posted-by: Matt