| Graphic: OC Weekly |
Workplace urinalysis programs don’t work for identifying employees who are under the influence of drugs, and do not significantly reduce job accident rates, according to a new study published in the scientific journal Addiction.
Scientists at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada reviewed 20 years of literature relating to the effectiveness of workplace drug testing, with a special emphasis on marijuana, which is the most commonly detected drug.
“It is not clear that heavy cannabis users represent a meaningful job safety risk unless using before work or on the job,” researchers found. “Urine tests have poor validity and low sensitivity to detect employees who represent a safety risk.”
According to the study, “drug testing is related to reductions in the prevalence of cannabis positive tests among employees, but this might not translate into fewer cannabis users; and urinalysis has not been shown to have a meaningful impact on job injury/accident rates.”
“Urinalysis testing is not recommended as a diagnostic tool to identify employees who represent a job safety risk from cannabis use,” the authors concluded.
The problem with urinalysis is that it detects the presence of cannabis metabolites, many of which remain present in urine for days, weeks, or even months after the last use of marijuana — long after any psychoactive effects of the drug have worn off, as pointed out by NORML.
Since your body loves cannabinoids and holds onto them as long as it can, marijuana stays in your system much longer (30-45 days) than other illegal substances (typically 3-5 days). Therefore, pot is almost always the reason individuals fail drug urinalysis tests.
Note to readers: There are plenty of products available which will help you beat a urine test. Google search terms like “herbal clean detox” will help you find them.
