Pubdate: Saturday, September 11, 1999
Source: Toronto Star (Canada)
Copyright: 1999, The Toronto Star
Contact:  http://www.thestar.com/
Page: L2
Author: Peter Carlson, Special to the Star

THE GREAT AMERICAN URINE WAR

Drug Tests Spawn A New Breed Of Entrepreneur

Kenneth Curtis is a creative, can-do entrepreneur. He saw a need, created a
product, built a business.

But the U.S. government is on his back. The politicians don't like what
he's selling.

Which is urine. His own.

Curtis' urine is pure. It's natural. It's organic. It's composed of 100 per
cent recycled materials. And, most important to his customers, it's
guaranteed drug-free.

"I live a clean life," he says, "and I supply all the urine."

For $69 (U.S.), plus postage, Curtis sells five ounces of his urine in a
little plastic bag, along with 30 inches of plastic tubing and a tiny heat
pack designed to keep his fluid at body temperature.

Taped to the body, this "urine test substitution kit" enables customers to
pass off his urine for their own during workplace drug tests, which are
commonplace in the U.S.

"I've never had a customer fail a test," he says. "I'm very proud of that."

Curtis, 40, was a pipe fitter in Greenville, S.C., when he started his
urine business four years ago. Every time he signed on with a new
construction contractor, he had to be tested. He always passed -- he
doesn't use drugs -- but the testing irked him.

"I was being tested a dozen times a year," he says. "I found it very
invasive."

So he decided to fight back. He developed his kit and founded a company,
Privacy Protection Services, to sell it. He set up a Web site that
advertises his, um, product. He's not selling urine, his site proclaims;
he's selling privacy, freedom and the American Way of Life. He's sold
thousands of the kits, he claims, although he won't say how many thousands.

"Suffice it to say, I don't have to work as a pipe fitter anymore," he says.

Last spring, irate that Curtis' kit could foil drug tests, South Carolina
state Senator David Thomas drafted a bill to ban the sale of urine. The
bill carried a penalty of five years in prison for selling urine -- or even
giving it away -- with the intention of defrauding a drug test. Texas,
Nebraska and Pennsylvania had already enacted similar bans.

"A business owner has the right to know that the employees working for him
are drug-free," Thomas says.

At a hearing on the bill, angry legislators berated Curtis. "You typify
what's worst about this country," said one.

"Everybody else is trying to clean up drugs," said another, "and you're
trying to put more in society."

"No sir," Curtis replied. "I'm selling urine, not drugs. Urine has been
around a long time."

The bill became law in June. To test it, Curtis walked into the Greenville
police headquarters and ceremoniously presented one of his urine kits to a
sheriff's deputy. The cops huddled with a lawyer and then decided not to
arrest Curtis, claiming his publicity stunt didn't violate the law because
the deputy who received the urine had no intention of defrauding a drug test.

The bizarre brouhaha over Curtis' precious bodily fluids is the latest
skirmish in a long war between the drug-testing industry and a gaggle of
underground entrepreneurs who sell products designed to foil the tests:
pills, potions, powders, shampoos and packets of freeze-dried urine, among
other odd items.

"It's very much a cat-and-mouse game," says Tom Johnson, a spokesperson for
SmithKline Beecham, one of the largest drug-testing companies in the U.S.

"They detect it and we move on," says Matt Stevens, marketing director for
Spectrum Labs, which sells "Urine Luck," an additive that allegedly fools
the tests. "Beating the labs is like fighting the federal government --
they're so big and slow... They can't detect the current formula."

Early drug-testing programs tended to affect workers in safety-sensitive
jobs -- pilots, bus drivers, train engineers -- but the practice soon
spread to include bookkeepers, burger flippers, blackjack dealers and
ballplayers.

But today, 196 of the 200 largest companies in the United States use some
form of workplace drug testing, and nearly half of all full-time workers
have been tested at least once. Most tests are designed to detect traces of
marijuana, opiates, amphetamines, cocaine and/or barbiturates.

Some companies sell freeze-dried urine, which means that the customer just
adds hot water.

Innovative Research Technology sells a device called "The Urinator," which
dispenses artificial urine. "It's made in a laboratory," says company
spokesperson Mike Smith, "to ensure that it's not a biohazard."

Drug-testing companies responded by immediately checking the temperature of
all samples that are handed in.

Vendors added devices to keep their products warm. The Urinator comes with
an electronic heating device. Kenneth Curtis' kit includes a chemical
warming device similar to the hand-warming packs used by hunters and a
thermometer for testing the sample before turning it in.

Curtis' kit works, which really irks South Carolina's Senator Thomas.

"Urine testing is easily fooled by what this man is doing," he says. "Their
technology is beating our technology right now."

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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart