Large Carriers Gain Unexpected Allies in Favor of Hair Tests to Detect Drug Use
This story appears in the Feb. 27 print edition of Transport Topics.
A request by six large motor carriers to allow hair samples in pre-employment drug testing for drivers in lieu of the current mandate for urine samples drew first-round comments that ranged from motor carriers and a college official to a drug testing lab and a Catholic diocese.
The exemption request, originally filed by the carriers Oct. 28 with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, was not made public prior to a Jan. 19 agency Federal Register notice. J.B. Hunt Transport Inc., Schneider, Werner Enterprises Inc., Knight Transportation Inc., Dupre Logistics Inc. and Maverick Transportation filed the request.
The comment period on the request was to have closed Feb. 21, but it was extended for 60 days last week.
All of the companies making the request conduct pre-employment tests using urine and hair samples, but they have complained that doing both tests is redundant and costly and that hair testing is more reliable.
“Our hair testing has uncovered drug abuse that urine testing fails to catch,” wrote John McNeilly, safety director for Midwest Cos., which is based in Coopersville, Michigan. “That shouldn’t be a surprise, given all the opportunities available to cheat.”
J.B. Hunt noted that the carriers are not asking that hair tests become mandatory. “They are simply requesting that they be permitted to use hair as an acceptable alternative specimen for conducting pre-employment tests and that the results of those tests be treated exactly the same as a result from a urine test,” Hunt wrote.
Some of the other six carriers added that hair tests have a 90-day window for detecting drug use, while urine’s window is far shorter.
“These motor carriers have shown that hair testing provides more effective results than currently mandated urine testing,” wrote Lincoln, Nebraska-based Crete Carrier. “The granting of the requested exemption is an important step towards ensuring the safety of drivers and the motoring public.”
American Trucking Associations said it supports the exemption.
“In the United States, more than 40 trucking companies, employing tens of thousands of truck drivers, conduct pre-employment and random drug tests using hair, in addition to DOT-mandated urine tests,” ATA wrote. “Hair-specimen testing’s long detection window and observed collection process has helped many of these companies identify thousands of drug users who might not otherwise be recognized as such.”
ATA added, “Unfortunately, since the federal government does not recognize hair testing as an acceptable testing method, companies that conduct hair tests cannot share these test results with other employers.”
Psychemedics Corp., an Acton, Massachusetts-based laboratory, wrote, “For almost 30 years, hair drug testing has been accepted and approved by a wide variety and cross-section of industries and businesses that want to achieve the goal of a drug-free environment in order to protect the safety of employees and the public at large as well as to increase employee productivity.”
Gary Garstecki of Mobile, Alabama, a University of Alabama board member who supported granting the exemption, said the college has been hair testing its top officials for the past five years.
“We have found that urine testing results [are] easily circumvented and not reliable,” Garstecki wrote.
The Catholic Diocese of Peoria, Illinois, said its schools have used hair sampling for the drug screening of employees and students since 2000. It has found the screening “to be a solid deterrent against drug abuse.”
Both the Teamsters union and the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO expressed concerns.
“We believe FMCSA should roundly reject this unprecedented application,” the Teamsters wrote. “It is without question that this case has wide-ranging implications on a highly sensitive matter that could impact the job opportunities for millions of Americans.”
The AFL-CIO wrote that hair- specimen testing remains a “contested issue in the scientific community.”
The Boston-based Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice wrote that substituting hair testing for urine would expose employers to potential civil rights challenges and years of litigation.
Still, even if the exemption is denied, a hair-testing rule soon could be on the books due to a congressional mandate that required the Department of Health and Human Services to implement a hair-test rule by December 2016.
Progress on the hair option has been delayed until a drug-testing advisory board of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, an HHS subagency, eliminates potential concerns “regarding the scientific methodology and forensic defensibility of hair testing” as well as legal and public policy questions, according to the advisory board’s chairman, Ron Flegel.
The advisory board has scheduled a meeting March 20 to discuss hair testing, but a SAMHSA spokesman said last week that the agency is not commenting on its progress.
