1 - National Criminal Justice Reference Service

APPENDIX T
DRUG POSITIVE RATES IN
CRIMINAL JUSTICE WORKPLACE CLIENTS
and
METHADONE PROGRAM CLIENTS
By Julie Whitney, Ph.D. and Scott Thompson
PharrnChem Laboratories, Inc. is a large forensic drug testing laboratory that tests for
clients from three main sectors -- Workplace, Criminal Justice, and Drug Rehabilitation. On
a continuing basis, PharrnChem compiles statistics on all of its clients and makes them available
to the client. Clients use these statistics to justify their testing programs, to select appropriate
drug panels for testing, and to anticipate needs in their drug after care or employee assistance
programs. The paper that follows presents test results from Workplace and Criminal Justice and
Methadone Maintenance Programs patients. The paper compares results for these clients across
variables, such as geographic location of the specimen donor and describes emerging trends
based on the results. Data from approximately 400,000 specimens donated in 1991 are included.
WORKPLACE CLIENTS
Workplace clients are companies or organizations that require testing of job applicants,
random testing of employees, reasonable suspicion andlor post accident testing. PharmChem
tests for two types of workplace clients -- those governed by Department of Transportation
(DOT) or National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) regulations and non-regulated companies.
Clients governed by NIDA and DOT test only for five drugs -- amphetamine, cocaine, opiates
(codeine and morphine), phencyclidine, and cannabinoids -- at the prescribed cutoffs. Nonregulated
clients' test panel and cutoffs are selected by the 'company or organization, based on
internal policy. The company-selected panel usually includes the five drugs for which NIDA
and DOT sanction testing plus other drugs, most commonly benzodiazepines and barbiturates.
A second difference is that none of the nonregulated clients have a random testing program; even
though several have expressed the desire to begin random testing by the end of 1992.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE CLIENTS
The criminal justice sector, for purposes of this article, is limited to donors on parole or
probation or in a halfway house pending release. All of these donors must remain drug free as
a condition of parole or probation or of continuation in the halfway house program. All of the
criminal justice donors are expected to be gainfully employed whenever possible.
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