Should Employers Consider Oral Fluid Drug Testing?
There are several advantages to oral fluid drug testing.
- By John Mallios
- Jun 01, 2022
Substance abuse in the United States isn’t a new phenomenon and, in fact, drugs being abused today were once regarded as medicine. In the 19th century, for example, heroin and cocaine were approved for use as medicinally therapeutic substances before their addictive properties became fully known. In the 1890s, the Bayer pharmaceutical company even promoted heroin as a cough suppressant and for treating the common cold.
During World War I, soldiers were given stimulants such as cocaine and amphetamine to increase their alertness, their physical performance and to suppress appetite. Additionally, by the mid-20th century, use of hallucinogens (LSD, PCP, mescaline, etc.), stimulants (cocaine, ecstasy, amphetamines, etc.) and marijuana became very popular recreationally, and were more readily available.
However, by the 1980s, U.S. federal and state governments increased programs and funding to address widespread substance abuse in American society, which ultimately lead to further initiatives designed to combat dangerous substance abuse occurring in the workplace.
Benefits of Workplace Drug Testing
Today, although most private employers are not mandated by regulation to conduct drug testing for their job candidates or employees, many still choose to do so, and for good reason.1 Employers are ultimately responsible for maintaining a safe workplace for their employees and for ensuring public safety whenever and wherever their workers interact with society.
Employers drug test to:
- Avoid legal liability in the event an impaired employee causes an accident or harms someone while working.
- Ensure workplace productivity by preventing the potential effects brought about by employee substance abuse.
- Safeguard company assets and property.
- Qualify for workers’ compensation premium discounts in states that offer incentives to employers to maintain a drug-free workplace.
After the 1980s when drug-free workplace testing programs began to take hold, drug testing proved to be a necessary strategy for American employers to help prevent serious accidents and to ensure workplace productivity.
During these early years, laboratory-based urine drug testing was the predominant sampling and collection method used for workplace testing. With lab-based urine drug testing, a job candidate or employee would be instructed to visit a collection site and provide a urine specimen to be analyzed for specific drugs included in the employer’s testing panel (a bundling of common drugs of abuse). The collector would manually prepare a paper chain of custody/control form (CCF), seal the collected specimen and package it with the CCF, and then set it aside for a courier to pick up later in the day for transport to a testing laboratory for analysis.
This article originally appeared in the June 2022 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.