Farm Forestry New Zealand

A safe workplace is free of alcohol and other drugs

Sue Nolan, New Zealand Tree Grower May 2017.

You are not expected to be an expert on all aspects of health and safety or on drug problems in the workplace and the details of drug-testing employees. However, the more knowledge you have of what is involved when agreeing a contract, the better. You can ask more of the relevant questions and make sure the contract covers what is required. If, for example, the contract says that drug testing of the staff takes place, this and subsequent articles should give you enough information to ask enough questions to ensure that the standard of staff drug testing by the contractor seems to be reasonable.

People affected by alcohol and other drugs pose a threat to health, safety and performance. As a result, testing for alcohol and other drugs in the workplace is now commonplace in New Zealand particularly for industry sectors which have safety-sensitive jobs. The forestry industry falls within the safety sensitive category.

The Health & Safety at Work Act requires employers and employees to identify the risks of potential hazards and have procedures in place to manage and eliminate the risks. An alcohol or drug impaired person has always been identified as a potential risk. Therefore, a robust modern alcohol and drug policy and procedures which includes testing should be a requirement for managing this risk. Urine testing is the most common way of testing for drugs, while alcohol is tested in a breath sample.

The first article on this subject in Tree Grower November 2016, focused on drugs which are commonly available in New Zealand, the misuse and abuse of alcohol and what companies should be testing for. This article will focus on drug and alcohol testing, methods commonly used to beat the test and how to minimise cheating.

Informed consent

The testing options are −

• Pre-employment
• After an accident or incident
• Reasonable cause
• Random

Before any drug or alcohol testing is conducted and on each testing occasion, the donor is required to sign an informed consent form. It should be the responsibility of the company manager or supervisor to get these forms signed, but a copy must also be available to present to the collecting agent. Testing should not begin until written consent has been given.

Methods for drug testing

Urine testing

Drug testing in New Zealand is mainly based on urine analysis. For workplace urine testing to be considered lawful, it must be conducted in compliance with the standard known as AS/NZ 4308: 2008. This requires collectors and those providing screening services to have two NZQA unit standards –

• US25458 Perform urine specimen collection in the workplace for drug testing
• US25511 Perform urine drug screening in the workplace

The testing starts with an initial screen for drug classes and specimen integrity, in other words testing for ways to beat the test. This screen test can either be conducted by the collector, referred to as on-site screening or by an IANZ accredited Laboratory – Institute of Environmental Science and Research Ltd or Canterbury Health Laboratory. If on-site screening is being conducted the screening device must have been verified as fully compliant with the standard mentioned above and have a certificate stating compliance. There is a range of such verified devices including the Microscreen testcup.

Many companies will qualify their own managers or relevant staff to conduct the screening test using these verified devices and other quality control methods. Urine which shows a ‘not negative’ must be sent to an accredited laboratory for confirmatory testing, using a method called mass spectrometry. This determines

whether a specific drug of abuse is present and whether the amount is at or above the relevant concentration. This can then be reported as a positive result. Confirmatory testing is crucial to eliminate interference from legitimate medication, foodstuffs such as poppy seeds and other abnormalities which will interfere with any drug screening test. The laboratory is also able to confirm whether the donor has definitely attempted to beat the test using a cheating method described below.

Oral fluid testing problems

In 2006 Standards Australia introduced an oral fluid or saliva drug testing standard. However, there have been problems with the standard, particularly with respect to testing for cannabis from a reliability and sensitivity perspective. The range of drugs tested for is also very limited. Therefore, Australia’s accreditation organisation released a statement in July 2013 declaring that it is not able to accredit facilities to cover oral fluid on site drug screening due to a number of significant technical concerns which are unable to be resolved.

The current status is that the standard is in the process of being updated to a joint standard with New Zealand. It is expected to be released in the latter part of 2017. Then there will be a delay period until methods and devices are available to comply with the updated standard. This means that New Zealand companies are being advised not to consider including oral fluid testing until the new standard is released, methods and devices are available and collecting agents have been qualified to comply with the new standard. In other words, oral fluid testing should not to be used until further notice.

Alcohol testing

The most common method for testing for alcohol in workplaces is breath testing. The breathalyser must comply with the Australian Standards AS 3547:1997. There is a range of breathalysers available from simple hand-held, easy to use devices to sophisticated fully automated wall hanging devices.

A company policy must dictate what the alcohol tolerance will be for employees or contractors while at work. The options are −

• Zero alcohol tolerance which means no amount of alcohol in the breath both at the beginning of the working shift and throughout the shift. This includes no consumption of alcohol at meal breaks. Zero tolerance is the option primarily applied for companies which are involved in safety-sensitive industries.
• NZ Transport Authority drink driving level of 250 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath for those over 20 years or age and zero alcohol tolerance for those under 20 years of age.

Even for zero alcohol there is normally a tolerance level of 100 micrograms per litre. This means that any test result at or above 100 will be positive whereas a result below 100 will be reported as negative.

The donor must not have anything in the mouth for 10 minutes before the initial breath test. If the result is negative, no further testing is required. If the result is positive, the person is required to have a supervised wait for 15 minutes until the second confirmatory test is carried out. The result of this confirmatory test is final

Methods for beating the drug test

There are many methods which are being used to attempt to beat the urine drug test. The most common ways are dilution, adulteration, detoxification and substitution. While some of these methods are easy to detect by the collecting agent and the laboratory when they conduct integrity testing, other ways of cheating are more difficult to detect.

A dilute specimen is a urine which has a higher than average water content. For testing conducted to the standard there are cut-off levels listed for each of the drug classes or drugs. Only a drug class or drug present at or above the defined cut-off level will be reported as not negative or the positive confirmatory test, and any presence below these cut-off levels will be reported as a negative result. Therefore, the aim of dilution techniques is to reduce the level of a drug to below its relevant cut-off level.

The most common ways of providing a dilute specimen are −

• Drinking excessive amount of fluid before a drug test
• Adding fluid to normal urine specimen and artificially warming it to body temperature

Supplying a sample of fluid which has been coloured with something like fruit juice to give the appearance of urine, which also requires heating artificially to body temperature

An adulterated specimen is one which has been tampered with by adding certain chemicals to the urine sample. These will either mask the presence of a drug or interfere with the testing equipment. Common chemicals are detergents, salt, bleach, eye drops and nitrite.

There are numerous detoxification products on the market which are claimed to flush drugs out of the body within 90 minutes to seven days depending on the product. They claim to contain unique combinations of vitamins, minerals, herbal cleansers or fruit concentration extracts. Some detoxification agents, such as lemon juice or baking soda, are designed to alter the pH of the urine. Depending on the drug, altering the pH will either slow down or speed up the excretion into the urine.

The most common method for beating the test is substitution − providing a urine specimen which did not originate from the donor’s body. One option is to collect urine from a person who is drug free. However, the most popular method is to buy artificial urine in powdered form and mix this with water to the correct volume.

Artificial powdered urine is available for online and at a wide variety of outlets. Frequently a container is supplied with a marker to indicate the correct volume of water required and a temperature strip to indicate when the sample has reached body temperature. Chemical pocket warmers are also available to heat the reconstituted artificial urine to the correct body temperature.

The most sophisticated form of substitution is to buy a Whizzinator. This device consists of an artificial bladder with a thermostat calibrated to heat the artificial urine to body temperature. A tube and tap are then connected to an artificial penis for males, with selection of colours, and a non penis version for females.

Integrity tests

In order to detect some of the cheating methods, on-site screening devices and laboratories have a range of integrity colour tests which are conducted as part of the screening test as shown on the panel at the bottom of the Microscreen testing lid. All urine collection receptacles should have a temperature strip attached to the outside which will record whether the specimen is at body temperature.

If either the temperature is outside the acceptable range or one of the integrity test colours is abnormal, the sample is rejected and the donor is required to provide another urine specimen. To ensure the donor does not attempt to beat the test again, they should be closely supervised until able to provide the second urine specimen. Both specimens are then sent to the laboratory for confirming an integrity failure and also full laboratory testing of the second specimen.

Minimising the chance to beat the test

Managers’ responsibility

For current employee testing, such as after an accident or random testing, the person required to undertake a test should be closely supervised at all times by a manager from the time of notification that they are required to undertake the test until they are with the collecting agent. There should be no opportunity to go unaccompanied to bags, lockers, cars, desks or storage areas where there is the potential to retrieve adulterants or to drink excessive amounts of fluid.

Collecting agent’s responsibility

Apart from the integrity tests which are described above, safeguards also exist at the urine specimen collection site, whether it is at a clinic or a workplace site. These include the following −

• The donor must provide verification of identity with both photograph and signature
• Colouring the toilet water so it cannot be used to dilute the sample
• Toilet cisterns and any taps in the toilet cubicle taped up
• The windows are secured
• Rubbish bins and any cleaning agents have been removed
• The donor washes their hands before entering the collecting area to reduce risk of smuggling substances on their hands or under the fingernails
• The donor is not allowed into the collecting area with a coat, bag, hat or any other object which may conceal adulterants or substituted samples
• The donor empties their pockets
• The donor is requested not to flush the toilet
• In order to check for hidden substituted samples, the donor may be requested to remove work boots and socks and also pat themselves or self-frisk in areas of their body where these samples can be taped
• The collector will accompany the donor to the toilet cubicle and will remain just outside the door which is usually left partially ajar.

Summary

Urine drug testing should only be conducted using methods and service providers operating in full compliance with the standard AS/NZS 4308: 2008. This includes –

• NZQA qualified collector and screeners
• On-site screening devices with verification certificates
• Daily quality controls applied
• IANZ accredited laboratories for confirmatory testing and testing for additional drugs
• Ensuring collecting agents are conducting integrity testing and applying the safeguard described above to beat the cheats.

Managers must ensure that the employees and contractors are accompanied to the collecting agent and not given any opportunity to beat the test. Oral fluid testing is not recommended until the updated AS/NZS standard is available and can be complied with.

Sue Nolan is a Director of DrugFree Sites.