Do you remember the Onterrio Smith scandal?  You know, the one where he was caught with “The Original Whizzinator” at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and subsequently suspended by the Minnesota Vikings for the entire 2005 season?  I’m sure it’s coming back to you now!

It turns out Mr. Smith left this piece of NFL history behind in a storage locker somewhere in Minnesota and it was put up for auction.  And yes, there was a buyer.

It’s true what they say:  One man’s trash really is another man’s treasure.

And the buyer of the ‘Whizzinator’ is…

A sports bar owner in Mankato revealed himself Sunday as the purchaser of “The Original Whizzinator,” and he said he intends to use the device that made Onterrio Smith infamous to raise the profile of his own establishment.

“I want to be the new training camp headquarters for the Vikings,” said Matt Little, the owner of Buster’s Sports Bar & Grill in Mankato.

The Whizzinator will be encased in glass at his bar’s memorabilia section next to jerseys of two Twin Cities sports superstars, Adrian Peterson and Justin Morneau.

Little recalled his reaction when he heard the Shakopee Auction Center was going to sell the device, which Smith was caught possessing at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in May 2005.

“I thought, ‘You got to be kidding me,’ ” Little said.

But Little, who had a prior engagement, was determined to take ownership of the device, recruiting a purchaser and giving him a $1,000 budget.

Little had someone place the winning bid of $750 for him Friday night at the Shakopee Auction Center.

Now Little wants to reunite the Whizzinator with its original owner.

“I got a guy who knows Onterrio, so we want to do a reunion,” he said. “How classic would that be?”

— Sean Jensen, Pioneer Press – August 31, 2009

NOTE: The makers of “The Original Whizzinator”, George Wills and Robert Catalano, are due to be sentenced in federal court on October 8, 2009.  They are charged with conspiring to defraud the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the federal agency that oversees federally mandated drug testing programs.  Both face up to eight years in prison and/or hefty fines for manufacturing and selling the device via their company website.

According to a new study released by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, about 90% of US bills contain traces of cocaine.  Researchers have said that this could lead to false positive drug test results if the employee handles large quantities of money as part of their job.  It could also lead to claims that cash handling is the reason for a failed drug test.  Imagine Tony Montana coming into your office after failing a drug test, saying “I never used cocaine, it’s because I used to be a bank teller.”  How much cocaine do you have in your pocket?

90 percent of U.S. bills carry traces of cocaine

The term “dirty money” is for real. In the course of its average 20 months in circulation, U.S. currency gets whisked into ATMs, clutched, touched and traded perhaps thousands of times at coffee shops, convenience stores and newsstands. And every touch to every bill brings specks of dirt, food, germs or even drug residue.

Research presented this weekend reinforced previous findings that 90 percent of paper money circulating in U.S. cities contains traces of cocaine.

“When I was a young kid, my mom told me the dirtiest thing in the world is money,” said the researcher, Yuegang Zuo, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. “Mom is always right.”

Scientists say the amount of cocaine found on bills is not enough to cause health risks.

Money can be contaminated with cocaine during drug deals or if a user snorts with a bill. But not all bills are involved in drug use; they can get contaminated inside currency-counting machines at the bank.

“When the machine gets contaminated, it transfers the cocaine to the other bank notes,” Zuo said. These bills have fewer remnants of cocaine. Some of the dollars in his experiment had .006 micrograms, which is several thousands of times smaller than a single grain of sand.

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The North Carolina Court of Appeals has ruled that a school board who required its districts’ drivers and teachers to submit to random drug and alcohol screening violated its employees privacy.  I couldn’t disagree more with this judgement.  I believe the safety of the students attending school in that district should be of the utmost priority and the school board should have the ability to determine how to best handle that responsibility.  Additionally, I think this ruling sets a very bad precedent that can be used against  any employer who requires drug and alcohol testing as a condition of employment.

One reason given for the judge’s decision:  “There is also a complete want of evidence that any student or employee has ever been harmed because of the presence of ‘a detectable amount of illegal drug or alcohol’ in an employee’s body.”

Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t.  And with this court’s ruling, it now has an even better chance.  A very poor decision.

Court Rejects Random Employee Drug Testing

By Jeff Gorman, Courthouse News Service – June 17, 2009

(CN) – A North Carolina school system violated its employees’ rights by forcing them to submit to random drug and alcohol testing, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled. The court cited privacy concerns and the lack of evidence that anyone has been harmed by a “detectable amount” of drugs or alcohol in an employee’s system.

Susan Jones and the North Carolina Association of Educators sued the Graham County Board of Education to challenge the policy, which required drivers to submit to random testing and required all employees to pass “an alcohol or drug test” as a condition of employment.

The testing policy became even stricter in December 2006, when all employees became subject to random testing. The employees sued five months later.     

The trial court ruled for the school board, but Judge Stephens reversed the decision on the grounds that it violated the state Constitution’s ban on unreasonable searches.

“We are unable to conclude from this record,” Stephens wrote, “that any of the board’s employees have a reduced expectation of privacy by virtue of their employment in a public school system.     

“There is also a complete want of evidence that any student or employee has ever been harmed because of the presence of ‘a detectable amount of illegal drug or alcohol’ in an employee’s body.” 

Read the case summary here.

A study conducted by Quest Diagnostics, a leading provider of substance abuse screening services for U.S. employers, shows that employees testing positive for cocaine has significantly declined over the past 20 years.  Since 1988, the positive rate of cocaine use among employees has dropped 10%.  Barry Sample, Director of Science and Technology for the Employer Solutions division of Quest attributes the decline in cocaine use to more employers conducting pre-employment and random drug testing.

While cocaine use is down, the study also illustrates that amphetamine use is up, as well as use of drugs belonging to the benzodiazepine family.  Benzodiazepines are commonly prescribed for anti-anxiety, pain and insomnia, among others.  The study does not indicate whether this rise is a result of abuse or a valid diagnosis by a doctor.

Job-Related Drug Tests Show Progress, Mostly

By Shirley S. Wang, The Wall Street Journal – May 6, 2009

Fewer U.S. employees and job applicants appeared to be using cocaine in 2008 compared with 2007, but slightly more used amphetamines, according to new drug testing data from Quest Diagnostics, a large provider of employer drug testing services in the U.S.

Also, in recent years, more employees tested positive for use of certain prescription drugs, like benzodiazepines, which are anti-anxiety medications, and oxycodone, a type of painkiller. But it’s not clear from the data whether individuals are appropriately using these drugs appropriately or abusing them, according to Barry Sample, director of science and technology for the employer solutions division of Quest.

Overall, Quest’s rate of positive drug tests primarily for illegal substances has continued to decrease steadily over the last 20 years. Positive urine drug tests decreased to 3.6% in 2008 from 13.6% in 1988.

The detection of cocaine use declined to 0.41% of the 5.7 million samples in 2008, a 29% decline from 2007. Amphetamine or stimulant use rose slightly for the third in a row, which Sample says could be related to users switching from methamphetamine to different stimulants, including medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Overall, 3.6% of pre-employment tests and 5.3% of random tests came back positive, Quest said. For individuals who knew that a drug test could be coming, the positive screening rates were 1.7% in pre-employment tests and 1.4% in random testing, suggesting that drug testing discourages drug use, according to Sample. Quest conducted 7.3 million urine drug tests in 2008.

“While we’re encouraged by some of these declines we’re seeing, it really is reflective to a large extent that these employers conduct employee screening in the first place,” Sample told the Health Blog.

Riddle:  What do you get when you combine four men, traffic violations, synthetic urine kits and an admission that the fake urine is to be used to try and beat employment drug tests?

Answer:  Arrested.

Fake pee lands four in jail in Friendswood

By Chris Paschenko, The Daily News – May 3, 2009

One similar kit purchased for $30 by The Daily News contains a 2-ounce bottle of yellow, odorless liquid with a strip thermometer attached, a hand warmer, rubber band and directions on how to give a “sample.”

Had the men admitted the fake urine was for medicinal purposes or intended as some kind of joke or twisted fetish, they might have been spared the indignity of handcuffs, a jail cell and scrounging up $1,000 bail.

But these four men, police allege, willingly offered the one explanation that violates the Texas health and safety code, constituting a Class B misdemeanor charge.

“Folks taken into custody told us they had to falsify a drug test based, most cases, on their places of employment,” Friendswood Police Chief Bob Wieners said.

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One of Peru’s top courts has ruled that workers cannot be fired from their jobs if they are drunk at work.  One of the Court Justices stated that as long as the employee hasn’t hurt or offended anyone, being under the influence of alcohol while on the job is okay.  This ruling has government officials very worried, and rightly so!  I guarantee it is only a matter of time before someone gets hurt or killed because of this irresponsible decision. 

You can’t fire me, I’m drunk!

Reuters – January 14, 2009

LIMA (Reuters) – Peru’s top court has ruled that workers cannot be fired for being drunk on the job, a decision that was criticized by the government on Wednesday for setting a dangerous precedent. 

The Constitutional Tribunal ordered that Pablo Cayo be given his job back as a janitor for the municipality of Chorrillos, which fired him for being intoxicated at work. 

The firing was excessive because even though Cayo was drunk, he did not offend or hurt anybody, Fernando Calle, one of the justices, said on Wednesday. 

Calle said the court would not revise its decision, despite complaints from the government. 

“It’s not a good idea to relax rules at workplaces,” said Labor Minister Jorge Villasante. 

Celso Becerra, the administrative chief of Chorrillos, a suburb of Lima, denounced the ruling. 

“We’ve fired four workers for showing up drunk, and two of them were drivers,” he said. “How can we allow a drunk to work who might run somebody over?” 

(Reporting by Marco Aquino; Writing by Terry Wade; Editing by Dana Ford)

Are you worried about your applicants’ and/or employees’ ability to cheat the drug test?  If you are, you really shouldn’t be.  Drug testing laboratories have measures in place to catch those who think they are smart enough to beat the system.

To Catch A Cheat

Clinical chemists battle products designed to fool workplace drug tests

Melody Voith, Chemical & Engineering News – September 8, 2008

EAGER JOB CANDIDATES who receive an offer of employment might feel as though they have won an Olympic gold medal—especially when they are asked to provide a sample for a drug test. And just like at the Olympics, some test subjects will try to beat the system.

But unlike at the Olympics, where officials test athletes for performance-enhancing substances (C&EN, Aug. 11, page 25), workplace drug tests are performed to identify those whose use of illicit substances may impair their job performance and create liabilities for their employers.

According to Amitava Dasgupta, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Texas Medical School, Houston, many products are on the market that prospective employees can use to dilute, substitute, or adulterate their test samples. In a talk at the annual meeting of the American Association of Clinical Chemists in Washington, D.C., in late July, he advised laboratory chemists to be vigilant in their pursuit of valid test results. “Toxicologists are smarter than drug users,” he said, but they need to know the tricks of the trade.

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This is very good news for all of you employers out there that conduct pre and post-hire drug testing.  In addition to the safeguards laboratories have put in place to detect any type of dilution or adulteration to a urine specimen, a new bill called “The Drug Testing Integrity Act” has been proposed that will “outlaw the manufacture, sale, shipment or provision of any product designed to assist in defeating a drug test.” Those in violation of this bill would be subjected to penalties and fines.

Stepped-Up Efforts Aim To Thwart Cheating On Drug Tests

Legislation has been introduced, and regulations soon will take effect to crack down on products and guidance designed to defeat testing.

By Susan J. Landers,  AMNews staff. August 25, 2008.

Washington – What do salt, bleach, soap, drain cleaner, detergent, lemon juice and white vinegar have in common? All are promoted on Web sites as substances that can be added to urine to mask the presence of illegal drugs.

Thousands of sites provide information on how to cheat on drug tests, and many of the techniques have been publicized for decades. No sooner had regulations been developed to institute President Ronald Reagan’s 1986 call for a drug-free federal workplace than people began searching for ways to evade detection, said Amitava Dasgupta, PhD, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston.

Labs have been successful, so far, at keeping up with the methods employed, but “it’s a cat and mouse game,” Dasgupta said. Just when labs catch up with one subterfuge, another comes along.

Dasgupta spoke July 29 at the Annual Meeting and Clinical Laboratory Expo 2008 of the American Assn. for Clinical Chemistry in Washington, D.C.

With drug abuse a critical problem in the U.S. and many other nations, the screening of potential employees has become common, Dasgupta said. More than 47 million adults reported working in settings where testing for illicit drug or alcohol use occurred during the hiring process, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Drug testing is also a public safety issue, and American Medical Association policy outlines the need to safeguard the validity and integrity of the testing system.

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A school bus driver in Salinas, CA failed a random alcohol test given to him on Monday by his employers, the Alisal Union School District. Unfortunately, this was after he had already driven 50 children to school. While it’s great to see schools following Department of Transportation protocol and randomly testing their drivers, it may be a good idea to randomly test before the start of the bus driver’s shift in order to avoid a situation like this (just a thought). Hopefully this individual will no longer be permitted to work as a school bus driver in that district, or ANY school district for that matter, in the future.

School bus driver arrested

By NICK RAHAIM • The Salinas Californian • June 3, 2008

A bus driver for the Alisal Union School District was arrested Monday on suspicion of being drunk while driving 50 children to school, police said.

Frankie Mata, 48, of Salinas, had a blood alcohol level of 0.12 percent when he and other district bus drivers were given a random drug and alcohol test following their morning bus routes, Salinas police said. The blood alcohol limit for drivers in California is 0.08 percent. But the blood alcohol limit for those with a commercial license, including bus drivers, is 0.04 percent.

Salinas police responded to the district about 12:40 p.m. and arrested Mata on suspicion of DUI and 50 counts of child endangerment – one for each child he transported.

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The use of marijuana for medicinal purposes has been a hot topic in recent years. Should doctors be allowed to prescribe marijuana for those with chronic pain? Is this an issue for the federal government to address or should this decision be left up to the states? Many states have already adopted bills either allowing for the use of medical marijuana or little to no criminal penalties resulting from the use of the drug with a valid prescription. In April, Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) introduced H.R. 5842 “The Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act” that will “provide for the medical use of marijuana in accordance with the laws of the various States.” But what you don’t see much of in the news is how this will affect employers should this bill pass and more states adopt a medical marijuana law. This article showcases the great debate between employers and employees in the state of California where in 1996, the use of medical marijuana was legalized. I can certainly see both sides to this issue. This is definitely an issue to keep an eye on in the coming months and years with respect to the employer/employee relationship.

Job security debated for medicinal pot users

By Jim Sanders, Sacramento Bee

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — For west

Californians gave Gary Ross the legal right to smoke medicinal marijuana at home.

But that didn’t keep the Carmichael resident from being fired for doing so.

Ross is at the epicenter of a fight pitting the rights of more than 250,000 medicinal marijuana users against those of business owners.

“It’s insane that someone has to fight so hard to use a medication that a doctor says is best for your treatment,” said Ross, 46.

The issue is not whether workers can be stoned on the job — they can’t — but whether even trace amounts of doctor-approved pot are grounds for firing.

The California Supreme Court ruled against Ross in January, sparking recent legislation to protect the jobs of medicinal users. The court found that California’s medicinal marijuana initiative, passed in 1996, did not address employment.

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