NCJ Number
158918
Date Published
1986
Length
15 pages
Annotation
Using a question-and-answer format, this booklet aims to answer the questions most often asked about the use of urinalysis for employee drug testing.
Abstract
Questions focus on why companies use urine screening, how many companies are using preemployment screening, whether screening for drugs is legal, and how often employees should be screened. Additional questions focus ways of addressing individual rights, privacy, and confidentiality; how a policy and program should be developed; the level of drug in the urine that indicates that an individual is impaired; the reliability of urinalysis methods; the meaning of laboratory quality assurance; the primary methods used for urine screening; the nature and role of confirmation assays; and the meaning of assay sensitivity and assay cutoff. Further questions focus on the ways false positives can occur, methods of eliminating false positives, the frequency of false positives, the costs of screening, whether passive inhalation of marijuana smoke can lead to a positive urine, whether testing can determine the time of previous drug use, and whether testing can determine the level of intoxication or drug use patterns. Address from which to obtain further information