Testy About Testing

When the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration proposed a rule earlier this year to allow federal agencies to conduct drug tests using hair, saliva and sweat, its goal was to poke a hole in the plans of would-be cheaters who have found ways to slip by the government's current urine-testing regimen.

But three months after SAMHSA posted the rule for public comment, it's under heavy fire. Both the Transportation Department and the Pentagon's Washington Headquarters Services branch say they will not use the new tests because of concerns about fairness. Transportation official Michael Moran went so far as to say that the new options "change the focus of the program from the intent of a random deterrence program to an entrapment intent."

Judging by statistics alone, there would seem to be little reason to add new tests. Urine testing has been successful in deterring drug use. Federal employees' positive test results have fallen from 18 percent to less than 1 percent since testing started in 1988. Four hundred thousand employees in political jobs, national security and public safety posts, as well as those with security clearances, must take the tests. Millions of workers in regulated industries, such as transportation, also are tested under federal guidelines.

But Donna Bush, chief of SAMHSA's drug testing team, worries that the program's success is threatened unless the new tests are approved. "If you don't go out and test . . . with new and additional testing technologies, you never know what might be going on that you're not testing," she says.

In the 18 years since President Reagan ordered drug tests, an industry has sprung up to help beat them. One typical company, Nevada-based A-Z Enterprises, offers "vitamins, minerals and herbal cleansers" with colorful names such as The Annihilator Kit. At the same time, simply abstaining from drug use for several days, or drinking large amounts of water before a test, can do the trick. But if an employee arrives for a drug test not knowing whether his hair, saliva or urine will be tested, his chances of cheating successfully will be minimal, Bush says.

Federal drug testing always has been controversial. In 1989, in a case pitting the National Treasury Employees Union against then-Customs Service Commissioner William Von Raab, the Supreme Court narrowly upheld the government's right to conduct the tests. In a stinging dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia called the decision an "immolation of privacy and human dignity in symbolic opposition to drug use." NTEU and the American Federation of Government Employees have filed comments opposing the new rule.

Still, anti-drug abuse groups, such as the Institute for Behavior and Health in Rockville, Md., support SAMHSA's efforts. "A very large percentage of people are cheating on the urine test," says institute President Robert DuPont. As a result, he says, the public's safety could be at risk. And industry groups that make drug testing equipment also have pushed SAMHSA for years to allow agencies to use the additional tests, arguing that their studies show that hair, saliva and sweat testing is just as effective as urine testing-if not more so.

Hair testing, for example, can show drug use going back months. Saliva, or oral fluid, testing works well at accident scenes where drug use is suspected, but urine testing is inconvenient. Sweat testing is efficient for workers returning to duty after testing positive because it captures drug use just within a specific window of weeks or days.

The companies have lobbied Congress through their industry trade association, the Alexandria, Va.-based Drug and Alcohol Testing Industry Association. Individual firms that also have hired Washington lobbyists include Cambridge, Mass.-based Psychemedics Corp., which specializes in hair testing, and OraSure Technologies, a Bethlehem, Pa.-based saliva testing firm.

Last year, Rep. James Greenwood, R-Pa., who represents a district bordering OraSure's headquarters, wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson complaining of "unacceptable delays" in SAMHSA's effort to expand drug testing. "Alternative drug tests using hair, sweat and saliva could strengthen security of the federal workplace," Greenwood argued.

In addition, among the comments filed on the proposal, companies and local governments that already use the new tests, such as Kraft Foods and the Chicago Police Department, testified to their success.

But many experts disagree and that worries federal managers. Going down the list of new tests in an interview, Amy Wodesky-the drug-free workplace coordinator who filed the Defense comments-called the hair test "very invasive." The saliva test, she said, was "ridiculous," since SAMHSA believes it would not detect marijuana use and must be used alongside a urine test. Testing sweat would set employees up for "harassment" since they would have to wear a collection patch, Wodesky said.

Another critic is Kenneth Edgell, former acting director of Transportation's Office of Drug and Alcohol Policy and Compliance. Before his retirement in February, Edgell oversaw testing of 12 million private sector transportation workers nationwide, from truck drivers to pilots.

Edgell was flummoxed by SAMHSA's proposal because he believes that the science simply isn't sound enough to support the new tests. He shares the widely held belief that hair tests, for example, are easier to pass if an employee has lighter hair. "Is it reasonable that people won't be judged on the same scale?" he asks. And what if a person shows up for the test bald? The SAMHSA rules do not permit testing of body hair.

"My bottom line is that it's not ready for prime time," Edgell says of the proposal. "I was in government for 30 years, 17 at [Transportation], and I was involved in writing regulations. You simply don't propose a rule where there are serious concerns."