Drug News You Can Use

Boeing drug bust shows alarming spread of prescription pill epidemic

Three dozen former and current Boeing employees were arrested Thursday for illicitly peddling prescription pills. Cases like this one show the challenges for law enforcement in dealing with the epidemic.

The law enforcement action at the Delaware County plant near Philadelphia yielded 36 arrests, including a former union president, the FBI said. Fourteen suspects were charged with misdemeanor possession of fewer than 10 pills, while 23 people were charged with trafficking penalties for selling up to 1,500 doses.

The sale of prescription pills, the FBI noted, has become a major focus of its investigations across the country. “These sales placed the individual abusers, as well as society at large, at risk,” said Vito S. Guarino, DEA acting special agent in charge.

The raid also highlighted how many middle-class workers at a major defense contractor were willing to chance their careers by becoming black marketeers. And it put into question Boeing’s employee drug-testing procedures. The company said that it has a policy of “no tolerance of drugs or alcohol on Boeing property or consumption or sale on premises” and that it drug tests workers if there’s suspicion of drug use.

Kindergartner Brings Mom’s Crack Pipe and Meth to School

A kindergartner at Sweet Spring Elementary school in Missouri took his mother’s crack-pipe and methamphetamine to show-and-tell.

According to local news broadcaster, KCTV 5 News, school administrators contacted police when the young boy removed the items from his backpack in the school’s hallway.

Welfare Drug Test Saves Taxpayer Money, Study Finds

The study focused on 5,964 Floridians who applied for cash assistance in July. According to the study, 574 applicants were denied because they tested positive for drug use — though 565 who simply never underwent a drug test were denied welfare.

“Drug users seeking taxpayer-funded cash assistance find it cheaper and easier to skip the drug test and forgo that benefit rather than submit positive results,” Bragdon said in a statement. “If an applicant knows he will test positive for drug use, and knows he will be denied benefits for up to a year, a drug test is a waste of time and money. But that drug user’s loss is the taxpayers’ gain.”

Bragdon’s study found the state saved almost $923,000 by not providing assistance to the 574 applicants who did not pass drug tests. As the state spent less than $162,000 on reimbursing applicants who took tests that found no drugs in their systems, Florida had a net savings of more than $761,000. Bragdon insisted that, if this pattern holds, the state will save more than $9 million in the first year of the law.

Bragdon took aim at critics of the law who maintained that it produced no significant savings. With 9.6 percent of applicants ineligible for welfare due to drug tests, the report found the program would save the state money as long as more than 1.87 percent of applicants were denied assistance. If the results from Florida are reflected in other states, taxpayers across the nation would save more than $173 million annually.

“Given the significant taxpayer savings and other positive initial results of this drug testing requirement for new applicants, policymakers would be wise to expand this requirement to include all current recipients of welfare cash assistance,” Bragdon said.

“Drug testing for cash assistance not only preserves precious state dollars for the truly needy, it sends a very clear message that the state will not tolerate attempts to take advantage of taxpayers’ generosity. There should be certain fundamental expectations to meet in order to receive these benefits. Staying clean and sober should be the most basic expectation of all.”

Use of Hair for Drug Testing Gaining Momentum By Transportation Companies

By HireRight On September 15, 2011

A recent Psychemedics blog post highlights the increasing acceptance among large motor carriers for performing hair testing as an additional drug detection method for regulated drivers to supplement the drug tests that are conducted in accordance with Department of Transportation regulations. With the heightened focus on the safety of motor carriers and drivers, as evidenced by the FMCSA’s CSA (Compliance, Safety, Accountability) initiative, motor carriers are exploring new ways to protect the safety of the motoring public. Enhanced drug screening programs, such as by performing hair-strand drug testing, is one such method that is getting the attention of motor carriers.

Hair testing involves using scissors to snip an undetectable sample of head hair, about the width of a pencil tip. The hair is then sent to a laboratory to undergo a complex chemical process that strips the outer layers of the hair in order to analyze the cortex of the hair follicle for evidence of drug use.

Hair testing typically identifies drug use approximately 3 months back, as opposed to urinalysis, which typically detects drug use from the past 48 to 72 hours. The wider window of detection is a distinct advantage for employers looking to identify habitual drug use by applicants or employees. Hair testing is also much more difficult to adulterate, or tamper with, than a urine test.

Though hair testing could be seen as a duplication of effort since motor carriers will still need to perform urinalysis to satisfy its drug test requirements, statistical analyses compiled by companies who perform hair testing reveal that there may be a critical gap for companies that rely on urine testing alone. Psychemedics, the company that pioneered the use of hair testing over 20 years ago, states that 85% of drug users identified by their proprietary hair testing technology would have been missed by urinalysis, which the J.B. Hunt data below supports.

J.B. Hunt, a top for-hire carrier, helped pioneer the use of hair testing by motor carriers. From May 2006 to September 2010, they did a comparison of 45,970 paired hair and DOT urine tests on the same individuals. The results were astounding, with 2987 (6.5%) testing positive with hair tests, but only 488 (1.06%) testing positive with urinalysis. Other carriers like Schneider and C.R. England have also experienced more positive results when using hair testing as an alternative drug detection method.

While use of hair testing is still relatively new for transportation companies, roughly 10 percent of Fortune 500 companies have a hair testing program in place. To find out how your drug and health screening program measures against others in the industry, download a free copy of HireRight’s 2011 Employment Screening Benchmarking Report.

Cocaine Use Down—Because It’s Too Expensive, Cheap Prescription Narcotics Used Instead

Is the recession changing the way we get high? All sorts of quirky trends have been attributed as fallout from the global economic crisis—including, most recently, a decrease in the frequency with which parents change their kids’ diapers, and a rise in odds and ends like lottery ticket sales and dog kidnappings. Now, experts are saying that people are turning away from pricey cocaine during these tough times, and are instead choosing cheaper narcotics to get their fix.

Citing a report from the Center for the Study and Prevention of Substance Abuse at Nova Southeastern University in South Florida, the Miami Herald reports that there are several indications cocaine usage is down in the area once known for “Miami Vice” and a teeming cocaine culture. The number of cocaine overdoses treated in ERs, cocaine-related deaths, and people seeking treatment for crack and cocaine addictions have all dropped sharply in recent years.