drug testing

What about if it's just the first two?

 

That Delia can be a right **** sometimes.

 

I think I'm in trouble.

 

IME, very.

 

Not IME. In 1982, when I was a student I applied for a Christmas job
at Harrods as a delivery driver, I got the job and had to have a
pretty thorough medical which included a urine test to test for
"drugs". At the time I had never taken any "drugs" so I wasn't
worried. The result came back and the Harrods doc., a miserable cow,
said that there was a positive result for cannabis. I explained that
this was bollocks as I had *never* used the stuff, they were adamant
that the tests were never wrong and I was, and still am, adamant that
it was bollocks. I took another test which proved negative and they
honoured their job offer. I would never trust any similar test again.

 

Technology must have moved on in 28 years surely

 

The railways have both random, transfer and "for cause" testing, and have
had since 1992.

Random is 10% of all safety critical grades must be tested and transfer
is for people who transfer between safety critical grades or between
locations.

For cause is in the event of an incident or report - the report needs no
proof, it could be anonymous or based on a manager's subjective
impression. For cause incidents could be a major incident - collision,
derailment to relatively minor - TPWS intervention (a safety device that
is frequently tripped) or missing a stop mark, with fail to call wrong
side release etc in between.

As you could imagine there are a lot of drugs tests - I have been a
senior TU official for over 10 years dealing with D&A and have never
known an erroneous drugs test result.

 

I could well imagine that there would be professsional, qualified and
experienced people dealing with the testing, and doing so within
well-documented guidelines. I suspect that most "errors" are the
result of poor handling, storage and separation of samples.

 

The railways only use a couple of approved laboratories/test providers so
the liklihood of mishandling errors are remote - it's expensive but
mandatory as part of the 1992 Transport and works act.

 

As I thought. Whereas Andy's experience "The guy doing the testing
said he believed me and threw the testing kit in the bin then filled
the form in saying I'd passed rather than calling out a doctor to do a
full on test " would perhaps indicate a less rigourous approach.

 

No doubt, I was only commenting on my experience of testing.

 

Mine was one of the "stick this in your mouth for 3 minutes then stick
it in here and see what happens" tests and the bloke doing the testing
said it was often wrong but they used it because most guilty people
admitted it as soon as the test came up positive.

 

That produced a genuine LOL when the mental picture appeared. I'd
imagine most blokes, guilty or not, would cough to quite a lot before
sticking it in their mouth, let alone before it goes "in here".

 

Cannabis will show positive just by you being in the same room as
someone smoking it

 

No. It. Won't.

Trust me.

 

You must have had a different test to me then , i got flagged twice
on a full blood /hair/ piss test and i have never used the stuff .

The Doctor administering the test said passive smokeing can leave you
with traces in your system for a week although at low levels

Apparently ibuprefen can make you flag positive too .

The company i was contracting too at the time accepted readings below
a level of 25 nanogrames per ltr of blood as a negative reading but
insisted that you had compulery re tests over a 3 moth period

 

Ah yes. The notorious "I didn't inhale" defense.

 

Iboprofen? I doubt it _very_ much.

Mwybe the false positives you had were in typing-based tests; you
certainly seem to have been posting stoned last night.

 

That's OK, then. Providing you're the first bloke in, I suppose.

 

<old joke alert>

"Barman, a double scotch please. I've just had my first blow-job"
"Congratulations! In that case, I'll make it a triple"
"Oh, that's OK - if a double won't get rid of the taste..."