A report variety of U.S. staff are dishonest on employer drug assessments by tampering with urine samples or utilizing different means to evade detection, new analysis exhibits. 

The proportion of workers who tried to pretend the outcomes of office drug screenings jumped greater than six-fold in 2023 from the earlier yr, in accordance with Quest Diagnostics, a nationwide drug testing firm. 

The surge in staff attempting to cover their drug use comes as extra states throughout the U.S. legalize leisure marijuana use. The shifting authorized setting and altering societal norms round hashish use is forcing employers to evaluation their drug-testing insurance policies. The chief goal of employer-mandated drug assessments is to make sure a secure office, whereas leisure drug use may also have an effect on employee productiveness. 

“Workforce drug testing exists as a result of it is supposed as a deterrence mechanism,” Dr. Suhash Harwani, senior director of science for workforce well being options at Quest, advised CBS MoneyWatch. “That is why it was based — to make sure office security.”

Quest’s evaluation of lab information additionally discovered that the drug positivity price for the general U.S. workforce remained at a report excessive of 4.6%, up from a low of three.5% between 2010 and 2012. 

As of April 2024, leisure marijuana is authorized in 24 states, or almost half the nation, in accordance with the Pew Analysis Middle. 

How staff cheat

Staff usually used one in all two strategies to foil an employer’s drug testing protocols: substituting their urine specimens by changing them with artificial formulation and even animal urine, or submitting invalid specimens, suggesting they’d been tampered with with the intention to conceal drug use. 

“Given the rising acceptance and use of some medication, significantly marijuana, it could be unsurprising that some folks really feel it essential to try to cheat a drug check,” Dr. Harwani stated in a press release. “It’s potential that our society’s normalization of drug use is fostering environments wherein some workers really feel it’s acceptable to make use of such medication with out actually understanding the affect they’ve on office security.”

Some consultants expressed concern in regards to the findings, saying they underline a necessity to enhance drug testing insurance policies and procedures.

“Drug assessments are an essential instrument employers must preserve everybody in communities secure,” Katie Mueller, senior program supervisor on the Nationwide Security Council, advised CBS MoneyWatch. “When coverage and process fails us or folks make selections to change their assessments for no matter cause, it places everybody in danger.”

Relating to the widening push to legalize hashish, Mueller added that “we have to have a very open dialogue with workers, employers and lawmakers in regards to the impacts of legalization, and the way it’s trickling right down to the office.” 

Dr. Harwani stated there may very well be higher methods of testing workers and job candidates for drug use than counting on urine samples. For instance, the U.S. Division of Transportation not too long ago authorised oral fluid testing to detect drug use, along with utilizing urine samples. 

Whereas urine samples are submitted in a non-public house, oral fluids are collected immediately by lab technicians. And whereas medication can take time to indicate up in a donor’s urine pattern, they are often detected in saliva instantly after they’re used.