As a lawyer handling interstate trucking accident cases, I see the results of a variety of safety problems. Now, a Houston TV investigative reporter has revealed one more hazard for us to worry about. Even when the federal drug testing regulations are followed by the testing labs, it is extremely easy for a truck driver who is motivated to do so to cheat on the test by using mail order drug-free urine. See this video report from Robert Arnold at KPRC TV in Houston, Texas.
drug test
Truck drivers’ drug tests: undercover investigators reveal how easy it is to cheat on truckers’ drug tests
By Ken Shigley on
Posted in Trucking Rules
Undercover investigators for the Government Accountint Office have found that it is surprisingly easy to cheat on random drug tests designed to catch truck drivers who use drugs. Using bogus truck driver’s licenses to gain access to 24 drug-testing sites, the investigators found that 75 percent “failed to restrict access to items that could be used to adulterate or dilute the [urine] specimen, meaning that running water, soap, or air freshener was available in the bathroom during the test.”
While the FMCSA estimates that fewer than 2 percent of truck drivers test positive each year for controlled substances, when Oregon conducted its own tests, 9 percent of truck drivers tested positive.
Dozens of products on the Web are marketed to truckers as fail-safe ways to defeat the mandatory drug tests. The GAO team bought drug-masking products over the Web and was able to mix them with real specimens at the drug-testing sites “without being caught by site collectors,” the agency said in a report scheduled to be made public Thursday.
(Thanks to alert reader David Warren in Florida for calling my attention to this article.)