30 December 2002
A drug testing research project that inspired a class action lawsuit has yielded mixed results. The controversial study was conducted at two public high schools in Oregon during the 1999-2000 school year by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) in Portland, Oregon, and was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The study was suspended by the federal Office for Human Research Protection last October over concerns regarding how the questionnaires were handled in classrooms, the randomization of schools and researchers’ involvement in the drug-testing procedure.
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27 December 2002
On a 4-3 vote, the Ohio Supreme Court has struck down a state law that said people seeking workers’ compensation benefits must prove that drugs or alcohol found in their systems did not cause their injury. Prior to the law, enacted in 2000, employers had to prove that drugs or alcohol caused the injuries if they wanted to contest worker’s comp claims. The 2000 law also mandated that workers who refused to take drug tests would be considered to have tested positive.
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27 December 2002
The British Labor government’s effort to remake the criminal justice system in its pending Criminal Justice Bill is sparking demands for an ever tougher approach to juvenile crime. On December 17, Tory Member of Parliament Graham Allen one-upped everybody by calling for the drug testing of children as young as 10 by police.
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19 December 2002
Follow-up tests suggest residents at the Claiborne County Hospital and Nursing Home suffered from a bad drug test rather than bad drugs, officials said. Local and state police were notified last week when one of the nursing home’s patients tested positive for marijuana in the hospital emergency room.
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11 December 2002
Rick Reimer was a prominent criminal lawyer in Pembroke. Then he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Mr. Reimer uses marijuana daily to cope with the effects of his illness and intends to use an impaired driving charge to scrutinize the law’s approach toward marijuana and its impacts on life.
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02 December 2002
Since he was a teenager, David Hughes had his heart set on becoming a Chicago paramedic and was within days of graduating from the Fire Department’s academy when his long-held dream was blown apart by what he contends was a bagel.
Make that a poppy-seed bagel, along with a Fire Department drug testing policy that Hughes and his lawyers contend are outmoded and unfair.
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25 November 2002
The jolly man in the red suit is a popular fixture at local shopping malls this time of the year. And chances are good that before Santa Claus hears one Christmas wish, he’s undergone a criminal background check and drug testing.
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22 November 2002
Colombia’s president proposed a new front in the global war on drugs: mass drug testing for Americans and Europeans. Reviving the traditional conflict between drug-producing and drug-consuming nations, President Alvaro Uribe said Friday the tests would dry up demand for drugs that Colombian insurgents sell to finance their decades-old civil war.
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20 November 2002
National shyster-in-chief (aka "drug czar") John Walters has done it again. Walters’ "drugged driving" initiative calls for "zero tolerance" for driving under the influence. "It’s about public safety," Walters claims. Not only is the initiative not about public safety. It’s not even about driving while drugged. Smoke marijuana on a Saturday night, for example. Drive on that Sunday. Guilty. For that matter, smoke a week before. Guilty.
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17 November 2002
Parents Who suspect their teenager is dabbling in drugs now have an alternative to snooping through drawers and closets looking for a hidden stash of dope. They can hire a drug-sniffing dog to do it for them.
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31 October 2002
Although Americans expect that their employer’s health insurance will cover alcohol or drug addiction treatment, more than one in five insured employees believe that if they sought coverage for that treatment, they would face negative consequences at work. Fears range from being fired outright to losing a license or failing to get a promotion, according to the results of the September 2002 "Workplace Recovery Benefits Survey" released today by Minnesota-based Hazelden Foundation.
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21 October 2002
A three-judge panel of the Cincinnati-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit held unanimously that a Michigan law that would subject welfare recipients to random drug testing as a condition of receiving benefits is justified by the state’s interest in preventing drug-related child abuse and other crimes.
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18 October 2002
A federal appeals court Friday cleared the way for Michigan to test welfare recipients for drug use.
U.S. District Court Judge Victoria Roberts halted a pilot drug-testing program in 1999 after a group of welfare recipients and the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan argued that the testing is unconstitutional.
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13 October 2002
Snacks can make people obese and high-wired. But get them fired? A U.S. Border Patrol agent dismissed from his job earlier this year after testing positive for drugs is blaming a San Diego-based manufacturer of hemp bars for his downfall. Michael Baranic, a San Diego attorney representing the fired agent, said his client’s troubles started last year after he ate Govinda’s Fitness Foods hemp bars just before a random drug test.
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03 August 2002
A Saraland, Alabama, woman who filed a rape complaint after a 4th of July date turned ugly was ordered to provide a urine sample for a drug test in Mobile County District Court on July 9. The order came after Judge Delano Palughi ruled favorably on a defense motion asking the court to force the accuser to submit to a drug test.
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