...FYI ~ Family & Youth Initiative: Drug & Alcohol Prevention & Abuse Consulting For The Entire Family. Based On 25 Years Of Success and Experience. A Street Smart ~ Straight Talk Approach Not Found in Traditional Rehabilitation and Counseling Programs.

Instant test are legal in the majority of states. Most states allowing instant test require lab conformation of any instant positive test result. New York State is a lab state. Instant test of any kind are not allowed for workplace drug and alcohol testing in New York State. Instant test can easily be fooled, misread and produce false negative or positive results.

The following excerpt is from an e-mail sent by Dr Richard Jenny, NYS DHHS Albany, NY Thursday, January 23, 2003 3:33 PM. The original e-mail has been forwarded to countless violators.

"Mike:
Public Health Law, Article 5, Title V, states: No person shall own or operate a clinical laboratory located in or accepting specimens from New York state or own or operate a blood bank which collects, processes, stores and/or distributes, human blood, blood derivatives or blood components, in New York state unless a valid permit has been issued as provided in section five hundred seventy-five of this title.

"Clinical laboratory" means a facility for the microbiological, immunological, chemical, hematological, biophysical, cytological, pathological, genetic, or other examination of materials derived from the human body, for the purpose of obtaining information for the diagnosis, prevention, or treatment of disease or the assessment of a health condition or for identification purposes.

This definition includes workplace drug testing."

Many informed employers continue to use prohibited instant devices in NYS. A few employers have been ordered to stop using instant devices by the NYS DHHS as a result of complaints by victims of false results. Most concerned employers are not able to verify this information.
During the summer of 2005, RDTS enlisted the services of a legal intern to confirm this information. Armed with NYS DHHS and NYS Dept of Labor contact names, phone numbers, legal libraries, the internet etc. our intern could not verify this information. Our intern conducted multiple searches posing as a new employer concerned about being in compliance, a drug and alcohol collection facility and a legal intern conducting research.

Use of instant test prior to pre-employment and random testing is illegal in New York and offers no credible purpose. It is common practice to use instant test to undermine pre-employment and random programs. It is also common for employers to ask for consent or release from a potential employee. Also a violation.

Many people report being turned down for employment because an instant test result showed Amphetamines which is common in many nasal and congestion medications. Instant drug test will detect many prescription and over the counter drugs. Instant test can't determine the difference between legal and illicit substances. Instant test have variable tolerances and may falsely report acceptable levels as positive or miss levels that exceed acceptable tolerances.

Companies testing employees not the managers or drug test managers and not the employees. Drug free managers are unable to manage an unchecked staff. The best managers can't manage a staff that doesn't show up, is hung over or is under the influence of controlled substances. A drug free staff will never respect and give its all for a manager that is not held to the same standard. Drugs know no social or economic barriers. Drug users are people. Owners, managers, and staff are just titles. Eventually resentment and poor morale become an additional issue for management and staff alike.

Companies that don't send positive employees to rehab or perform return to duty and follow-up testing after a positive test result. This sends a clear message. There are no consequences for using illegal substances at work.

Companies that don't perform random drug testing and reasonable suspicion testing at all.

Companies that don't perform random drug testing and reasonable suspicion testing properly. Many companies notify randomly picked employees hours, days or even weeks before sending them for a test. Many companies who have numerous pre-employment positives and random positives never have reasonable suspicion test. However they are never surprised when a random or a post accident drug and alcohol test comes back positive. Others decide to send employees for reasonable suspicion test at the end of the day or several hours after the suspected behavior was observed. This allows the employee to burn off excess alcohol that may be the cause of behavior warranting safety concerns.

One thing substances abusers have in common is the need to brag about their ability to cheat the system. Daily at least one person brags about being given an instant test or advanced notice prior to a pre-employment or random test. Others report being sent to another facility that is off the company books and then to the contracted facility for a test that will be recorded as the first pre-employment or random test. Users always brag about the friend who referred them to the future employer who does not have a random or reasonable suspicion program. Once hired they are safe to continue their substance abuse.

We receive many calls from human resource and safety managers asking how to handle an employee who came up positive and has made an issue about the company not following the proper protocol. Long time users often know more about company polices than the company representative in charge of the safety programs.

Many companies put people to work before receiving the pre-employment test result. Many have no idea what to do with employees when results come back positive after being pre-maturely hired. These are usually companies we have previously refused to take as clients.

It has been proven for decades, if you have to drag clients in you will always have to drag them all the way through to the end.

Companies who take short cuts and savvy substance abusers are not the only weak links. The integrity of the collection is an enormous issue. Following proper procedure for specimen collection is crucial. Certified collectors are as easy to find as mass certification providers. I speak to numerous collectors with many more years of experience than I, who haven't got a clue how to conduct a proper collection.

Many say they are too busy to do all that junk. Others report their facility won't allow collectors to follow procedures that my take extra time or back up the waiting room. A non-confrontational collector is no match for some users. Then you have bribes. How much will a wealthy donor offer to cover up one carefree night at a 20 or 30 year high school re-union. What will an over worked collector except to ignore a temperature strip. This average bribe is $20.00. A non-confrontational person usually doesn't pay attention to the temperature in order to avoid possible issues. Numerous donors report several testing experiences at different facilities and have never experienced the procedures routinely performed by RDTS Certified Collectors.

Some procedures routinely ignored are not at all time consuming ie: washing hands prior to collection, empty donor pockets to check for adulterants, placing bluing in the toilet bowl to prevent dilution of specimen. Glancing at temperature strip to detect a switched specimen.