Hair-raising Facts About Drugs and the Workplace
The following article by Manpower’s Mark Toth gives some interesting information about employment drug screening
Hair on Drugs?
What does your employees’ hair say about their drug use?
A new study shows that drug tests that utilize hair samples identify ten times as many drug users as traditional urine tests.
Hair Better?
According to Quest Diagnostics, new data to be released Friday shows that hair tests can detect a pattern of cocaine and methamphetamine use dating back as far as three months. Urine tests typically only detect use in the past one to three days. As such, urine tests are acceptable for detecting if drugs were a factor in a workplace incident but may allow applicants to avoid detection by stopping use a few days before testing.
The new data shows that cocaine was detected in 3 of every 1,000 urine tests but in 32 of every 1,000 hair tests. Methamphetamine showed up in 1 out of 1,000 urine tests but 9 times in hair tests.
Drugs Dropping?
Both urine and hair tests show a significant drop in workplace drug use in recent years. For example, urine tests show a 57% decrease in cocaine use in the past five years. Hair tests show a 36% drop. In fact, Quest Diagnostics reports that no drugs of any kind have shown an increase in workplace use in recent years.
What’s the Cost?
Urine tests typically cost between $20-30. Hair tests usually cost about twice as much.
Article by Mark Toth, Chief Legal Officer of Manpower’s North American operations, and courtesy of Manpower Employment Blawg. Mark also serve as Chief Compliance Officer and Vice President of Franchise Relations and serve on our Global Leadership Team, North American Lead Team, Executive Diversity Steering Committee and Sarbanes-Oxley Steering Committee.
