Friday, February 17, 2006

The Random Drug Test

The truck drivers you see out on the road are required by the rules of trucking (CFR 49 Part 382 available as e-CFR if one has about a week free to study the stuff) to submit to random drug tests. Now this is required of not only the known drug and alcohol users but also of those who never touch the stuff.
Now, this happened here in America and I hope I can tell the story as it unfolded and continues for the next two years for a fellow driver whom we'll call Joe. Joe is a career driver having owned his own truck and now has been with the company for about 4 or 5 years. He's about 50 and has never touched drugs and has a beer or two on the weekends. Joe was ordered (computer draw) to go to the drug testing place to yield a sample which he did. He signed some paperwork which was given to him to sign. He then asked the administering staff if that was all and was told it was. He left the office. The next day he was summoned to the company office and told that he needed to go back to the testing place. The doctor in charge there told him he had failed the test because he had not signed ( I think initialed) a seals on the urine containers. Now remember I said the attendant had told him is so many words that he was done. The attendant had not told him he needed to sign or initial those vials. I guess Joe should have had the knowledge of the testing procedure to do this. He didn't. Too bad for Joe. To make the long story short Joe is now attending substance abuse counseling for a while and will be on "probation" and must be tested a zillion times over the next couple years and was even threatened to be sent to anger management when he began to get a bit frustrated during discussions with the staff at the testing site and with the rehabilitation counselor. And to top it all off Joe must pay for all this out of his own pocket. What do you think?

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