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Schoolies face roadside drug tests on way to Queensland
SCHOOLIES will face roadside drug tests, with police planning to mouth-swab thousands of youngsters headed to Queensland over the next three weeks.
Three mobile drug-testing vans, kitted out with $1 million of testing and computer equipment, will be used to conduct the biggest ever drug sweep in the state.
Police will concentrate on the Pacific Highway heading north to Surfers Paradise.
The warning came as NSW police yesterday joined with interstate colleagues to launch Operation RAID, a national safety campaign that began at midnight last night.
Cops settle innocent driver's drug test case
A Victorian man could receive up to $250,000 in an out-of-court settlement, after he was falsely labelled a drug user by police in a bungled roadside drug test three years ago.
Ballarat courier John de Jong, 43, found himself in the full glare of the media as police trumpeted their new drug testing equipment on December 13, 2004 in west suburban Yarraville.
He was the fourth driver tested and it came up positive for cannabis and amphetamines use and it was caught by the media who police had invited to record the testing.
Police claimed it was the world's first positive drug driving test. The alleged find was broadcast on four Melbourne television news services that evening and was beamed around the world.
Mr de Jong found his wife Kay and teenage daughters in tears when he arrived home, embarrassed by the reports.
An independent laboratory later tested the sample and cleared Mr de Jong. The police lab later confirmed the finding.
Police 'hit list' drawn up to catch drug-using officers
SENIOR police have drawn up a hit list of officers to be drug-tested as soon as a new law is passed.
The law, expected to be passed in June, will allow Victoria Police to test employees if they have been involved in a "critical incident", such as a shooting or high-speed chase resulting in an injury, or if there is a reasonable suspicion that they have been abusing drugs.
The Assistant Commissioner of the Ethical Standards Department, Luke Cornelius, told The Age there had been an increase in the detection of police dealing and using drugs in the past 18 months. He said it was not clear whether this was due to more police abusing drugs or the result of better intelligence.
"(The Ethical Standards Department) does have a hit list. There are a number of people who will be tested, based on the credible intelligence that we currently have, as soon as we're able to," Mr Cornelius said.
"If they're found wanting, we will deal with them. Of course, if they come out with a clean bill of health, I can close the file."
Mr Cornelius would not disclose how many police were on the hit list, only saying that the list was of "sufficient size" to convince the force there was a need for targeted testing.
Staff shortages after 80 per cent fail drug test
The meat industry wants to bring in seasonal workers from the Pacific Islands to meet a labour shortfall caused partly by up to 80 per cent of local applicants failing drug tests.
The industry has begun tripartite meetings with the Government and unions about a scheme similar to the new, recognised seasonal employer scheme for horticulture, which allows horticulturists to bring in up to 5000 workers from the Pacific for up to seven months a year.
Meat Industry Association adviser Robyn Deacon said the labour shortfall in the meat industry was smaller _ about 1000 in a workforce of 24,000.
But the industry faced the same challenges of finding seasonal labour in near-full-employment rural areas. The meatworks' recent shift to drug testing all job applicants had heightened the problem.
Hamilton-based Affco, which runs 10 meatworks from Moerewa in the north to Awarua near Invercargill, started testing three years ago and said the number of job applicants who failed the test varied from area to area.
"At times it can be as high as 80 per cent," said human resources manager Graeme Cox.
Study Goes to Pot
Drivers who use marijuana are less likely to cause road accidents than drunk drivers or even drug-free drivers, a study has found. The study, the most comprehensive of its kind in the world, prompted researchers to warn against diverting resources from anti-drink driving campaigns to campaigns against driving under the influence of drugs.
Conducted by a team from the University of Adelaide’s pharmacology department and Transport SA, the study used analyses of blood samples from 2500 drivers injured in accidents in South Australia. In their attempt to define whether cannabis and other drugs played a large role in road accidents, researchers used information from the police report on each crash to determine whether the injured driver was culpable.
Drug-free drivers caused the accidents in 53.5 per cent of cases. Injured drivers with a blood-alcohol concentration of more than 0.05 per cent were culpable in nearly 90 per cent of accidents they were involved in. Drivers with cannabis in their blood were less likely to cause an accident, with a culpability rate of 50.6 per cent.
More drug testing leads to more methods of deception
Yes, employees are getting more and more brazen in their efforts to falsify employers' drug tests. But, employers are on to them and their efforts usually fail.
This according to Amitava Dasgupta, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Texas-Houston Medical School. After studying this topic for the last few years, he recently presented his findings to members of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry at its annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
"I became interested in the ways people cheat when our hospital started drug testing," says Dasgupta. "I went home and called some 800 numbers I found online and found I could buy anything I wanted [to falsify a test] as long as I gave them my credit card number." It's unclear how many products are out there, he says, but new ones are hitting the market all the time.
In the past, some drug users added household products such as bleach, toilet bowl cleaner or vinegar to their urine. And while buying synthetic urine or urine from drug-free people has been the cheaters' modus operandi for years now, says Dasgupta, the market now includes lots of new products that alter urine, either by ingesting them or by adding them to urine samples.
Marijuana is the most abused drug, says Dasgupta. Other drugs commonly detected in employee screenings are cocaine, amphetamines, phencyclidine (PCP or "angel dust") and benzodiazepines ("benzos"). Now, employers are reporting more designer drugs such as ecstasy and date-rape drugs such as gamma-hydroxy acid (GHB), says Dasgupta.
Despite the proliferation of new products that help people fake their test results, says Dasgupta, the proportion of positive drug tests by employers is going down nationwide. Typically, employers outsource the testing to laboratories certified by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
According to SAMHSA, 42.9 percent of full-time workers are tested for illicit drugs or alcohol during the hiring process. And 29.6 percent of full-time workers are random-drug-tested by their employers.
Drug-driving test kits get green light
ROADSIDE tests for drug-driving are to be given the go-ahead in a bid to crack down on reckless motorists who go on the roads having taken illegal substances. Ministers will confirm later this month that new roadside kits capable of spotting traces of drugs will be used across the country. It follows shocking figures which found that almost 20% of drivers involved in fatal accidents had traces of drugs in their system.
Police in Australia are already using the kits - known as 'drugalysers' - which test a motorist's saliva. Police here would be able to charge guilty motorists under drink-driving laws, if the test was brought in.
The Home Office will publish guidance in the next two weeks setting out strict standards for the kits. Scottish ministers have now made it clear that, once they are available, they hope to roll them out across Scotland.
The move follows a campaign by the Conservative Party north and south of the Border to make drug-driving as socially unacceptable as drink-driving.
Surveys have shown that as many as one in five youngsters take to the wheel having taken drugs. However, punishing somebody for the offence has so far proven near impossible because of the lack of reliable tests. Police have been forced to rely on 'common-sense tests' such as asking motorists to walk in a straight line.