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Fair Tresses Hide Drug Excesses
Posted by A. Shapiro
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Blondes have more fun, and they may be more likely to get away with it, too—that is, if their idea of fun is taking illegal drugs. Redheads, however, are even less likely to get caught. The darker a person’s hair, the more it accumulates traces of ingested drugs, new research shows. Since hair color is often a reflection of skin pigmentation, the results suggest that drug tests of hair samples may have a racial bias. However, experts said that in practice, hair differences are just one of many factors between individuals or ethnic groups that can influence the results of a drug test. The work was presented at a meeting this week of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and… Read More
Paul McCartney & His Band On The Run
Posted by A. Shapiro
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Timothy White interviewed Paul McCartney, formerly of the Beatles, for a book and developed it into a radio program called “McCartney: The First 20 Years.” He asked the songwriter to explain his song “Band on the Run,” on the album of the same name. “Well, at the time, bands like us and the Eagles were feeling like and being treated like outlaws and desperadoes, you know,” replied McCartney. “I mean, people were getting busted for pot, that is. And that’s about all they were getting popped for: Never anything serious. “And our argument was that we didn’t want to be outlaws. We just wanted to be part of the regular scene, you know, and make our music and live in… Read More
Junk Science Drove America To Drug Testing
Posted by A. Shapiro
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In the 1950s, employers spooked by the Red Menace instituted mandatory loyalty oaths, forcing employees to forswear any ties to communism. In the 1990s, the drug scourge had replaced communism as the great looming societal threat, and the pee-in-a-cup employee drug screen became de rigueur. But the march of time has a way of exposing baseless hysteria. Just as the loyalty oath has been shelved as an overblown reaction to the Cold War, so soon will the drug test become an abandoned relic of the war on drugs. While drug testing exploded during the past decade, with the rate of major U.S. companies engaging in it rising from 21 percent in 1987 to 81 percent in 1996, there are compelling… Read More
Scientists Check THC Content Of Hemp Beer
Posted by A. Shapiro
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Sometimes the scientists get to be the lab rats. Lynn Kurtz works as a forensic toxicologist at the state crime lab in Missoula, Montana, where the staff has recently had occasion to drink beer—all in the name of science. In October, Kurtz and his co-workers came across a letter to the editor of the Journal of Analytical Toxicology. The letter writers had tested a beer called Hempen Ale to determine whether drinking the beer might lead to a urine test that showed positive for THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. The test struck Kurtz as a good idea. Kurtz, other lab employees and acquaintances spent an evening drinking Olde Bongwater beer, brewed at Kettlehouse Brewing Co. in Missoula. Olde Bongwater… Read More
Hair Testing’s Color Blind
Posted by A. Shapiro
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The popularity of so-called hair testing to detect drug use is skyrocketing nationwide—a boon for the Cambridge company that is the nation’s largest provider of hair testing services. But with the increased popularity comes new controversy over the accuracy of hair testing, and its possible bias against people with dark hair. Employers, including some of the nation’s most established corporations, favor hair testing over urine testing because it can reveal drug use months earlier, rather than just the previous few days. A snippet of an employee’s hair is sent to one of the companies that provides analysis—most often Psychemedics Corp. in Cambridge—and the strand’s composition is examined for evidence of drug residue. General Motors, Anheuser Busch, BMW and Rubbermaid are… Read More
Drugs of Abuse & Their Detection In Urine
Posted by A. Shapiro
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The aims of the drug screen are to detect the presence of frequently abused drugs in the urine of human subjects. Drug screens are used for one of three purposes: Medical purposes (e.g., to monitor a patient’s progress in a medical treatment program for a drug abuse problem the patient has acknowledged) Legal purposes (e.g., to determine if a suspect had taken controlled substances prior to some accident or crime) Medicolegal purposes (e.g., in an employer’s drug abuse program aimed at both preventing drug-related accidents and crimes and identifying and treating employees with drug abuse problems). For medical purposes, laboratories often use simple, less-expensive methods aimed at identifying specific drugs with which the patient has had problems in the past.… Read More
Judge Blocks First-Ever Mandatory Drug Testing Of Michigan Welfare Recipients
Posted by A. Shapiro
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A federal judge in Michigan today halted the state’s attempt to impose mandatory drug tests on all welfare recipients, confirming American Civil Liberties Union arguments that being poor is not an indication of being criminal. U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts, who this morning heard ACLU pleadings on behalf of a group of welfare recipients, said that requiring suspicionless drug tests as a condition for government benefits and subsidies is “likely unconstitutional.” “The judge seemed especially concerned with the rights of ordinary citizens whose only offense here is that they are in need of government help,” said Kary Moss, Executive Director of the ACLU of Michigan. “No one should have to choose between their constitutional rights and providing for their families.”… Read More
Drug Testing Takes A Hit
Posted by A. Shapiro
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Drug testing on the job, once a controversial practice at a few companies, has become so pervasive that it now seems as common as filling out a W-4 form or punching a time clock. Want that high-profile new job at a Fortune 200 company? Here’s your cup, there’s the bathroom. Give us a urine sample, then we’ll talk stock options, pal. Want to stay employed in that construction job? Better watch what you ingest over the weekend because you may be randomly selected to give a sample before firing up the bulldozer Monday morning. In 1986, only 21.5 percent of companies tested employees, according to a survey by the American Management Association. By 1996, 81 percent did. The number of… Read More
Drawing The Line On Drug Testing
Posted by A. Shapiro
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The case for testing employees, students and those applying for government benefits for drug use seems obvious. Drug testing can deter people from using illegal drugs. It can catch people who are breaking the law. And it can help detect those who are using drugs and make sure they are treated and/or punished. That logic has encouraged the massive expansion of drug testing throughout the United States—first of employees, then of athletes, and now of students and many other categories of Americans. Tens of millions of Americans now urinate into jars or pluck a few hairs so their employers or school authorities can determine whether they have consumed a detectable drug in the past few days or weeks. Many now… Read More
Hemp-Urinalysis “Myth” Probed
Posted by A. Shapiro
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A hefty Kentucky dinner of hemp-fed beef washed down with hemp-brewed beer will in no wise endanger the diner’s employment prospects, researchers for the Kentucky Hemp Growers’ Cooperative Association were delighted to report recently. After all the urinalysis tests came back negative, hempster Andy Graves exulted, “We dispelled a myth! We’re glad we can gloat.” The myth under investigation, promulgated nationwide by the multi-billion-dollar drugtesting industry, holds that just about any ingestible dietary item which contains preparations from the dreaded cannabis plant will leave incriminating “cannabinoid” traces in the ingester’s urine, bound to show up deceptively on their less-than-perfect urinalysis gimmicks as “THC.” Last year, after several professional chemistry journals had published studies showing how this misidentification has occurred in… Read More