When it comes to workplace impairment and law enforcement impairment we see some similarities and differences. Law enforcement needs methods to detecting impairment with drugs and alcohol to maintain a level of safety for society. This has become more common concerning drug use as recreational marijuana has been legalized in many states. Their processes involve breathalyzer instruments for alcohol detection and currently blood testing for drug detection. What can employers do when enforcing 'Drug Free Workplace' policies and especially reducing the chances of worker impairment. Companies can use the same method of law enforcement when it comes to alcohol testing but drug detection is currently not identified by a breathalyzer. Blood testing is evasive and expensive with very few companies using that method of policy enforcement. Company drug testing has previously been primarily urine testing for the different reasons: pre employment, random, post accident, and reasonable suspicion. Urine testing has been effective over the years because drug use is typically a habit that people will participate in to reach a 'high' but will also continue to abuse to avoid the 'crash' that comes afterwards. So while employees can potentially plan their drug use leading up to a pre employment test, there is no way to avoid recent usage detection if a random, reasonable, or post accident test is performed since the drugs are detected in the urine for at least 2-3 days. Most drugs are eliminated from the body after a few days but marijuana stores in the fat cells so for habitual 'daily' users a urine drug test could show positive for a couple weeks.
Saliva testing has some different features when compared with urine testing. These differences can provide a better fit for some employers or as an option for a certain testing reason. The small differences are; First, saliva testing will not go back as far as urine by only showing usage up to a couple days. Second, saliva testing will detect more recent drug usage possibly detecting drug use a few hours after ingesting compared with urine taking twice as long or more for the drug to show up. This is taken from the Quest Diagnostic fact sheet on saliva testing-
Just like traditional urine testing, the window of detection in oral fluid is different for each drug. Like urine drug testing, oral fluid testing detects recent drug use and may also identify very recent usage that may be missed by urine testing. For most drugs, the maximum window of detection in oral fluid is about 1 to 2 days. In contrast, urine testing detects drugs or their metabolites excreted in one of the body’s waste systems and may detect some drugs for a slightly longer period of time (1 to 3 days). Moreover, oral fluid testing may detect drug use 1 to 2 hours after ingestion/use while urine testing usually requires 2-6 hours to detect use after ingestion/use.
A reminder to companies is that there is no guaranteed way to know what is affecting a person's body and mind at any moment because of the numerous drugs and the mixing of these drugs that is popular in society. Also, it is impossible to know exactly when a person took a drug(s) and how much. Companies with medical or recreational marijuana laws should also not try to identify a system that will indicate 'Friday Night' usage or a weekend marijuana habit. What conclusions we can make on saliva testing is that recent use can be detected earlier and that the detection window is going to be shorter.
