Workplace drug test "fail"

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Fred99

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#181333 11-Oct-2015 12:44

Watch what you eat - it might cost you your job.

If this isn't sorted quickly and amicably, this guy should lawyer up and sue.

Totally unacceptable IMO that the first "drug test firm" could make the mistake of getting ESR to conduct a second test, without being aware of that particular issue, and without instruction to conduct whatever other tests may be required to eliminate the possibility that they were getting (an effective) false positive. Very poor form also from ESR to carry out such a test which they should have known was useless, which they must have known would have grave consequences for the individual. and when they will have the equipment and skills to conduct further analysis - even if they did note on their report the possibility of ingestion of poppy seeds causing the result. Then totally unacceptable for the employer to ignore that and to fire him.

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#1403843 11-Oct-2015 13:42

Was it also ESR who did the testing for Fonterra that said the milk powder had botuislum in it when it actually didn't? (or at least not the toxic version)

mckenndk

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#1403844 11-Oct-2015 13:45

This has happened in a place I have worked as well with the positive detection, the company let the person explain himself and it turned out after going back over what he had eaten to have been poppy seeds in a birthday cake.

So the tester's should be well aware of this happening.

gzt

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#1403846 11-Oct-2015 13:48

I dont understand the article. It leads with preemployment drug test and says it cost him his existing job. This could be 100% correct if he is on temporary contract with prescreen required each time, but the article does not explain that.

Fred99

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#1403849 11-Oct-2015 14:00

gzt: I dont understand the article. It leads with preemployment drug test and says it cost him his existing job. This could be 100% correct if he is on temporary contract with prescreen required each time, but the article does not explain that.

I gather that he was employed by an engineering firm as a fitter, then drug testing was required when he was to work on site at NZRC / Marsden Point working on a contract that they had there.

Geektastic

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#1404034 11-Oct-2015 22:17

Surely the employee ought to be entitled to part of the blood sample and to have further tests carried out by a lab of his choice?

Fred99

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#1404060 11-Oct-2015 23:04

Geektastic: Surely the employee ought to be entitled to part of the blood sample and to have further tests carried out by a lab of his choice?

One would hope so...
Doesn't actually solve the issue though - if you eat poppy seeds, there will be detectable levels of morphine and codeine in urine.
However, if a primary screening tests positive- requiring a second test, then more care should be exercised in test #2. Typical opiate abuse may be heroin. More sensitive analysis needed to detect metabolites of heroin or co-products of acetylation of morphine to produce heroin, like traces of acetyl codeine, or take hair samples and analyse these to confirm use of opiates at high level over a long term. That costs serious $$$. Cheaper just to fire the poor guy.

That might not preclude the possibility that the dude actually was an occasional opiate abuser. He might have been enjoying the occasional hit from opium - not heroin - on Saturday, and showing the same levels of morphine in his urine on Monday as he'd show if he'd had poppy seed toast for brekky that morning.

It all seems so great - this drug testing thing. Perhaps it's not. Hypothetical question - jumping on a jetliner with pilot subject to drug tests. You'd hope he was clean. Thing is he could have been dropping acid on the weekend- and test clean Monday morning, yet smoked a joint a fortnight ago and lost his job on the same test. Given the choice I'd rather be at the mercy of a pilot who'd smoked a joint a fortnight ago than one who'd just spent a weekend tripping on acid.

Kids / young folks subject to workplace testing aren't dumb. They're choosing to take drugs with known half-life / detectability (or lack thereof) in preference to drugs which may be less harmful but easily detected. Some are very very unsafe. You can almost certainly blame routine drug testing for the existence of crap like that.

ajobbins

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#1404065 11-Oct-2015 23:22

This must happen a lot. Codeine based pain killers are widely used are available OTC and codeine also metabolises into morphine in far higher quantities than 4 poppy seeds. Plenty of legitimate reasons someone would have small amounts of narcotics in their system but it seems like this guy wasn't even given the opportunity to explain himself at all.

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Geektastic

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#1404139 12-Oct-2015 10:08

Fred99:
Geektastic: Surely the employee ought to be entitled to part of the blood sample and to have further tests carried out by a lab of his choice?

One would hope so...
Doesn't actually solve the issue though - if you eat poppy seeds, there will be detectable levels of morphine and codeine in urine.
However, if a primary screening tests positive- requiring a second test, then more care should be exercised in test #2. Typical opiate abuse may be heroin. More sensitive analysis needed to detect metabolites of heroin or co-products of acetylation of morphine to produce heroin, like traces of acetyl codeine, or take hair samples and analyse these to confirm use of opiates at high level over a long term. That costs serious $$$. Cheaper just to fire the poor guy.

That might not preclude the possibility that the dude actually was an occasional opiate abuser. He might have been enjoying the occasional hit from opium - not heroin - on Saturday, and showing the same levels of morphine in his urine on Monday as he'd show if he'd had poppy seed toast for brekky that morning.

It all seems so great - this drug testing thing. Perhaps it's not. Hypothetical question - jumping on a jetliner with pilot subject to drug tests. You'd hope he was clean. Thing is he could have been dropping acid on the weekend- and test clean Monday morning, yet smoked a joint a fortnight ago and lost his job on the same test. Given the choice I'd rather be at the mercy of a pilot who'd smoked a joint a fortnight ago than one who'd just spent a weekend tripping on acid.

Kids / young folks subject to workplace testing aren't dumb. They're choosing to take drugs with known half-life / detectability (or lack thereof) in preference to drugs which may be less harmful but easily detected. Some are very very unsafe. You can almost certainly blame routine drug testing for the existence of crap like that.

Aren't dumb? If they weren't dumb, they wouldn't be choosing drugs at all...!

DizzyD

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#1404143 12-Oct-2015 10:14

Fred99:

Kids / young folks subject to workplace testing aren't dumb. They're choosing to take drugs with known half-life / detectability (or lack thereof) in preference to drugs which may be less harmful but easily detected. Some are very very unsafe. You can almost certainly blame routine drug testing for the existence of crap like that.

What a classic post.

MikeAqua

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#1404147 12-Oct-2015 10:29

Reads like a pretty poor process was followed.

OK, so testing was justified given the nature of the work and the hazards involved

First step after the positive urine screen test should have been to sit down with the employee ans ask about prescription of pain killers, recent consumption of poppy seeds etc.

All the positive screen tells you is that opiates above a (very low) detection threshold have been detected. That is big difference from being under the influence of opiates.

Mike

Fred99

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#1404183 12-Oct-2015 10:49

Geektastic:
Fred99:
Geektastic: Surely the employee ought to be entitled to part of the blood sample and to have further tests carried out by a lab of his choice?

One would hope so...
Doesn't actually solve the issue though - if you eat poppy seeds, there will be detectable levels of morphine and codeine in urine.
However, if a primary screening tests positive- requiring a second test, then more care should be exercised in test #2. Typical opiate abuse may be heroin. More sensitive analysis needed to detect metabolites of heroin or co-products of acetylation of morphine to produce heroin, like traces of acetyl codeine, or take hair samples and analyse these to confirm use of opiates at high level over a long term. That costs serious $$$. Cheaper just to fire the poor guy.

That might not preclude the possibility that the dude actually was an occasional opiate abuser. He might have been enjoying the occasional hit from opium - not heroin - on Saturday, and showing the same levels of morphine in his urine on Monday as he'd show if he'd had poppy seed toast for brekky that morning.

It all seems so great - this drug testing thing. Perhaps it's not. Hypothetical question - jumping on a jetliner with pilot subject to drug tests. You'd hope he was clean. Thing is he could have been dropping acid on the weekend- and test clean Monday morning, yet smoked a joint a fortnight ago and lost his job on the same test. Given the choice I'd rather be at the mercy of a pilot who'd smoked a joint a fortnight ago than one who'd just spent a weekend tripping on acid.

Kids / young folks subject to workplace testing aren't dumb. They're choosing to take drugs with known half-life / detectability (or lack thereof) in preference to drugs which may be less harmful but easily detected. Some are very very unsafe. You can almost certainly blame routine drug testing for the existence of crap like that.

Aren't dumb? If they weren't dumb, they wouldn't be choosing drugs at all...!

Why wouldn't they? I'm pretty sure you probably take drugs. I'm having an espresso coffee right now. I'm not advocating that people (especially young people) should use illicit drugs. OTOH some do anyway regardless of what you think, what DizzyD thinks, what I think, and what anybody else might think. From what I see, it's almost regardless of background, intelligence, education. Dumb? In the context you're using it, probably doesn't correlate with intelligence.
Some relatively safe drugs are illegal, some relatively unsafe drugs are legal. Prohibition has consequences. The drug in the article I linked to seems to be very dangerous. From what I know of it, it's also probably very easy to smuggle, and sold illegally in a form similar to LSD or even "as LSD". LSD is popular at the moment, 'cause you can take it on the weekend with very low likelihood of being caught in workplace drug testing.

MikeB4

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#1404190 12-Oct-2015 10:57

The medications I take would probably send the test results off the scale.

DizzyD

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#1404196 12-Oct-2015 11:03

Fred99:
Geektastic:
Fred99:
Geektastic: Surely the employee ought to be entitled to part of the blood sample and to have further tests carried out by a lab of his choice?

One would hope so...
Doesn't actually solve the issue though - if you eat poppy seeds, there will be detectable levels of morphine and codeine in urine.
However, if a primary screening tests positive- requiring a second test, then more care should be exercised in test #2. Typical opiate abuse may be heroin. More sensitive analysis needed to detect metabolites of heroin or co-products of acetylation of morphine to produce heroin, like traces of acetyl codeine, or take hair samples and analyse these to confirm use of opiates at high level over a long term. That costs serious $$$. Cheaper just to fire the poor guy.

That might not preclude the possibility that the dude actually was an occasional opiate abuser. He might have been enjoying the occasional hit from opium - not heroin - on Saturday, and showing the same levels of morphine in his urine on Monday as he'd show if he'd had poppy seed toast for brekky that morning.

It all seems so great - this drug testing thing. Perhaps it's not. Hypothetical question - jumping on a jetliner with pilot subject to drug tests. You'd hope he was clean. Thing is he could have been dropping acid on the weekend- and test clean Monday morning, yet smoked a joint a fortnight ago and lost his job on the same test. Given the choice I'd rather be at the mercy of a pilot who'd smoked a joint a fortnight ago than one who'd just spent a weekend tripping on acid.

Kids / young folks subject to workplace testing aren't dumb. They're choosing to take drugs with known half-life / detectability (or lack thereof) in preference to drugs which may be less harmful but easily detected. Some are very very unsafe. You can almost certainly blame routine drug testing for the existence of crap like that.

Aren't dumb? If they weren't dumb, they wouldn't be choosing drugs at all...!

Why wouldn't they? I'm pretty sure you probably take drugs. I'm having an espresso coffee right now. I'm not advocating that people (especially young people) should use illicit drugs. OTOH some do anyway regardless of what you think, what DizzyD thinks, what I think, and what anybody else might think. From what I see, it's almost regardless of background, intelligence, education. Dumb? In the context you're using it, probably doesn't correlate with intelligence.
Some relatively safe drugs are illegal, some relatively unsafe drugs are legal. Prohibition has consequences. The drug in the article I linked to seems to be very dangerous. From what I know of it, it's also probably very easy to smuggle, and sold illegally in a form similar to LSD or even "as LSD". LSD is popular at the moment, 'cause you can take it on the weekend with very low likelihood of being caught in workplace drug testing.

You digging yourself into a hole now.

Your post was referring to hard drugs (the half-life type, your quote), because its all about covering up detectability. Its not necessary to try and hide from legal drugs. Why would you want to do that?

Fred99:

Kids / young folks subject to workplace testing aren't dumb. They're choosing to take drugs with known half-life / detectability (or lack thereof) in preference to drugs which may be less harmful but easily detected. Some are very very unsafe. You can almost certainly blame routine drug testing for the existence of crap like that.

Fred99

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#1404300 12-Oct-2015 13:16

DizzyD:

You digging yourself into a hole now.

Your post was referring to hard drugs (the half-life type, your quote), because its all about covering up detectability. Its not necessary to try and hide from legal drugs. Why would you want to do that?

Why am I "digging myself in a hole"?

I'm not sure if you understand what's meant by "half life" - it's not related to how "hard" a drug may be.

The drug referred to in the link I posted ("N Bomb") appears to be very dangerous indeed, yet half life/detection period in drug tests is probably irrelevant, as AFAIK, it can't be detected in standard drug tests anyway. When I say kids aren't dumb, they can (and will) find that out on the 'net. You'd hope that they'd heed warnings about the danger - but don't count on it. The A&E departments are clogged friday and saturday nights with young folks who took risks, legal and illegal.

Moralising and/or condemning people for doing something that you or I might consider "dumb" is one matter.

Accepting that regardless of what you or I think, it's probably going to happen anyway (and clearly has - with serious consequences), then "harm minimisation" policy is a pretty reasonable idea.
An example of that would be with "methylated spirits". It hasn't been "methylated" in NZ for more than a decade. They took it out for reasons of harm minimisation (as well as accidental poisoning of kids etc).

I'm not comfortable with the prospect of dangerous and hard to detect synthetic drugs becoming more readily available - especially if their use is "incentivised" by the difficulty in detecting them in standard drug tests.

MikeB4

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#1404319 12-Oct-2015 13:36

Drug testing for employment needs to be done very carefully and the results confirmed by subsequent test as the impact of getting it wrong is big.

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