Page 38 - ATR 2 2013

revealing results

Hair testing proves better detector of drug abuse

by callie hoyt
Contributing Writer

A 2007 study conducted by the
state of Oregon estimated that 10 per-
cent of truck drivers abuse drugs. With
approximately 3 million truck drivers in
the United States, that 10 percent is not
exactly a reassuring figure when driv-
ing alongside an 80,000-pound tractor
trailer. With Oregon’s estimate in mind,
the underlying problem remains that
there really is no way of determining
how big the problem actually is.
Drug abuse amongst commercial
truck drivers imposes serious public
safety risks and concerns. Since 1989,
the United States government has
required trucking companies to con-
duct drug and alcohol surveillance of
truck drivers through pre-employment,
random, post-accident and reasonable-
cause drug testing. The Department of
Transportation (DOT) is responsible
for adopting the workplace drug testing within the trucking industry have rec- first major carrier to adopt hair test-
protocols and threshold levels desig- ognized the safety-critical deficiencies ing in its pre-employment screening.
nated by the Department of Health and and made strides to overcome them. Greer Woodruff, senior vice president
Human Services (HHS). For years, Lowell, Arkansas-based of Safety and Security at J.B. Hunt,
HHS only designates procedures J.B. Hunt has reported annual post-acci- explains that the company turned to
and standards for the testing of urine, dent positive result percentages around hair tests because they are collected
leaving urinalysis as the only option 3 percent. Despite the company’s best directly by a collector so the specimen
to fulfill DOT drug screening require- efforts to decrease this percentage, it can’t be tampered with and hair has
ments. While there are advantages to had remained relatively stagnate. But in a longer detection period so a person
urinalysis in detection of immediate 2005, a pair of tragic accidents in which could not simply stop using drugs for a
drug use, there are also many disad- Hunt drivers failed a post-accident drug few days to beat the test.
vantages. The federal government has test but had previously tested negative “By keeping drug users out of our
either failed to see or ignored altogether for DOT pre-employment urine tests, company using pre-employment hair
that DOT drug testing regulations are necessitated a dramatic change. tests, our DOT urine positive rate on
in need of improvement. But leaders In May 2006, J.B. Hunt became the random tests dropped by 80 percent

38 arkansas Trucking rePorT | issue 2 2013