In 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that drug testing without suspicion of use does not violate the Constitution's Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches. Executive and judicial moves paved the way for the unprecedented growth of workplace drug testing within the public and private sector. About 50% of large employers today require drug testing as a predocndition to employment. About 400,000 of the nation's 1.6 million or so federal workers suffer through some form of drug screening.

Going along with increasing incidences of drug testing, companies that claim to be able to perform unconventional drug screens of citizens' hair, sweat, and saliva have emerged, each proclaiming its new state-of-the-art technology to be the "heir apparent to the piss cup." For the most part, however, employers have been unconvinced. Thanks to groups such as DATIA, the Drug & Alcohol Testing Industries Association, things may be about to change. The group's mission of late has been to push the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to amend the federal workplace guidelines so federal agencies can conduct drug screenings of employees' hair, sweat, and saliva, since current federal law requires sole reliance on the testing of urine. DATIA is hopeful that a change like this might get private employers to start using alternative specimen technology. The Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), has criticized the new technologies as seriously flawed.

This is where lobbyists and the the legislative branch of the U.S. government come in. H.R. 3922 was introducted in the House of Representatives last year. It would have amended title 23 of the United States Code, "relating to improving safety and enforcement with respect to individuals operating motor vehicles while under the influence of, or having used, drugs." However, rather than being in a "drugged" state, subjects need have only tested positive for inert drug metabolites (which, in the case of marijuana, could linger in the urine for days or even weeks after smoking) to be found guilty. H.R. 3922's purpose seemed to be to criminalize otherwise non-criminal behavior, i.e., driving while sober. The measure did not become law, but that does not mean that similar attempts at legislating more invasive and frequent drug testing will not be made this year!

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