1 - National Criminal Justice Reference Service

Second, and perhaps the larger factor, is that the nonregulated donors were tested for
more drugs than the NInA/DOT donors. As shown in Figure 1, about 10% of the positives for
nonregulated workplace donors were for benzodiazepines and about 8 % for barbiturates, neither
of which NIDA/DOT tests. It is possible that at least some of the bergodiazepine positives and
the barbiturate positives were ruled "acceptable" because the donor had a valid prescription for
their use, and, when the "acceptable" positives are factored out, there may be no difference in
the overall positive rates for nonregulated and NIDA/DOT donors.
With respect to benzodiazepines, however, such an interpretation s~ould be made with
caution since slightly more than 1 % of the benzodiazepine positives were combined with cocaine
positives, indicating the use of benzodiazepines to come down from a cocaine high, rather than
therapeutic use of an antianxiety agent. The conclusion that a certain percentage of benzodiazepine
positives did not come from a valid prescription is further supported in the Criminal Justice
sector in which approximately 20% of the benzodiazepine positives occurred in combinatiog
with cocaine positives.
Figure 1 also shows that the drug of choice for both nonregulated and NIDA/DOT
donors in 1991 was cannabinoids, while the drug of choice for criminal justice donors was
cocaine. This finding is the same as in 1990. However, in 1991 the workplace sector
experienced an increase in the percentage of specimens testing positive for cannabinoids and a
nonsignificant overall decrease in the percentage of positives for cocaine. In the criminal justice
sector in 1991, on the other hand, there was an increase from 1990 for the percentage of
specimens testing positive for cocaine and no decrease from 1990 in the percentage of specimens
testing positive for the various other drugs.
COMPARISON OF POSITIVE RATES BY GEOGRAPHIC REGION
In previous years, the drug of choice (i.e., the d~g with the highest positive rate)
differed by geographic region and appeared to be somewhat dictated by ready availability of the
drug in the geographic region. For example, cocaine, which must be imported into the United
States tended to have its greatest positive rates in states that border the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans and in states that border Mexico. In previous years, the highest positive rates for
cannabinoids tended to come from states that were not near borders and states (e.g., Midwestern
states) in which marijuana was known to be an important cash crop. In states that border
Mexico, from which both marijuana and cocaine are imported, there tended to be significant use
of both marijuana and cocaine, with a higher positive rate for cocaine and few combined
marijuana/cocaine positives.
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