Positive Drug Tests - Everyone Talks About False Positives the 1st Time, But Scatter When the 2nd Positive Comes In...

I haven't had to deal with a lot of positive drug tests in my career, but the few I've dealt with have convinced me that there's a time-honored tradition with positive drug tests.  It goes a little something like this:

--Employee gets news of positive test.  Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.  Denial happens immediately from the employee.

--Employee gathers themselves (rallies around the Google search function), then comes back to you a few hours later with some possible reasons for the positive test - those could include - poppy seed muffin (ever wonder why they don't serve those in Kabul?  I forgot, they like to save the poppies for EXPORT...), second hand pot smoke, etc.

Here's a new one for the "It wasn't me, it was the second hand stuff" crowd.  You can now burn a positive cocaine test by making out with a junky model in South Beach.  Don't believe me?  Just ask Richard Gasquet via Sports Illustrated:

"While the 16 remaining players in the men's draw competed at Wimbledon on June 29, Richard Gasquet was a few miles from the All England Club, fighting for his career at a tribunal hearing. Three months earlier, the French player had tested positive for cocaine, triggering a two-year ban under the World Anti-Doping Agency code. In a sport with no guaranteed contracts and a short career shelf life, this was, potentially, akin to a professional death sentence.

But in a considerable upset, the International Tennis Federation's panel ruled Wednesday that Gasquet inadvertently took the cocaine. He was cleared to play after completing a 2½-month ban, which ended Wednesday. The three-person tribunal found credible Gasquet's defense that the trace amounts of cocaine had entered his system when he kissed a woman in a Miami nightclub.

"We have found the player to be a person who is shy and reserved, honest and truthful, and a man of integrity and good character," the tribunal said in its ruling. "He is neither a cheat nor a user of drugs for recreational purposes."

I kid you not.  It follows a predictable pattern related to initial positive tests.  The employee has reasons, and everyone likes him/her.  So, the pressure comes from the stakeholders in the company:

"Could it be that the poppy seeds caused it?"

"I've seen that model at South Beach. Sounds right..."

Depending on your policy or the agencies you deal with, you might have to have a hearing and subject yourself to the possibility of a workplace drug suspension being overturned, or at the very least, a termination being overturned, replaced by a suspension.

Here's the funny thing.   The first time the employee tests positive, many rush to his/her defense.  The second time they test positive?  Crickets.  No one comes to your office to talk about the poppy seed/junky model possibilities.

Just ask Jeremy Mayfield....

Comments

[Brian]

Of course, what's most often lost on those that administer and take drug tests is that they are pretty much low-level intelligence tests. Most common drugs that are tested for in these tests are easily removed from the system with a maximum of 30 days abstinence. Knowing you're out looking for a job and assuming you're reasonably put together, there shouldn't be any reason other than stupidity that one gets caught on a drug screen.

[The Non 12-Step Drug Rehab Center]

One of the most crucial areas of any sort of drug rehab or alcohol rehab program is the partnership between customer and clinician. When a client does not connect with or rely upon his or her specialist, significant recovery may likely not happen. Addiction specialists invest much time and effort cultivating the healing partnership and actively look for to lessen the possibility for mistrust or dispute.

On the other hand, the addiction treatment program, as a company, has a vested interest in guaranteeing that customers remain clean and sober while at the facility. Not just does active relapse pose instant protection worries and hinder recovery for the person and those around him, however it can easily additionally win the rehab center undesirable attention in the media or recovery community.

Several addiction treatment facilities take an active function in guaranteeing that people do not have prepared accessibility to habit forming substances throughout their stay. For example, a customer's individual and belongings can be evaluated throughout the consumption procedure; products as apparently innocuous as mouthwash might be restricted provided their alcohol material. Further, treatment personnel could be tasked by having evaluating earnings mail and plans to prevent contraband from getting in the facility.

Nonetheless, some facilities transcend keeping track of belongings and package deals. Numerous drug rehab centers make regular and random drug screening an obligatory part of the program. For outpatient drug rehabilitations, the need to guarantee that participants keep clean and sober is a great deal greater than in typical inpatient programs as customers are both exposed to induces and given access to drugs and alcohol in the outside globe.

When a drug-testing system is executed as part of a drug rehab or alcohol rehab, clinical specialists have to take actions to guarantee that people see the operation as a positive device on their recovery quest and not an abuse of the trust engendered in the curative partnership.

In several means, drug examining is a positive area of treatment as it helps in relapse reduction and supports sincerity both within the patient himself and by having his outside communications. Since exams do not generally lie, addicts that have actually relapsed are not able to maneuver team, workplaces, buddies and household into thinking that they are keeping sober. When a recovering addict has actually relapsed, instant intervention is needed in order to reduce the damages. Drug exams aid guarantee that people may get the assistance they want, when they want it.

Clients really should be suggested that drug examining is a positive device that boosts liability, keeps the facility drug-free, and inevitably assists them attain their sobriety objectives. Since abstinence from drugs and alcohol is an objective of several personal drug and alcohol treatment plans, drug exams assist determine customer improvement to that objective.

Although programs usually do not reprimand customers for positive exams, some programs need patient and therapist to draft a listing of pre-determined effects in the also of a positive drug exam; depending on the treatment plan, a positive exam might induce a client to be badly altered at property or work. In additional conditions, reporting could be called for by a company or court. For example, if, in order to keep his project, a client has actually agreed to enable the facility to alert his company if he checks positive for drug or alcohol usage, a positive exam reported to the company could create him to lose his project.

Although drug screening can be an useful recovery device, in order to protect a client's personal privacy and personal rights under the law, any type of repercussion for bad drug or alcohol exams ought to be drafted under the rules offered by the National Institute of Substance abuse and the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act, which need clients to be kept track of when offering urine samples to prevent false negatives.

[treatment centers]

When a drug-testing system is executed as part of a drug rehab or alcohol rehab, clinical specialists have to take actions to guarantee that people see the operation as a positive device on their recovery quest and not an abuse of the trust engendered in the curative partnership.