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National Safety Council favors confirmation of positive drug tests

ITASCA, Ill. — The National Safety Council (NSC) said Tuesday it supports confirmation of positive drug screen results in transportation safety cases.

“When a professional driver with a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) is involved in a crash, drug screens following the crash are taken and any positive screens are confirmed by an alternative analytical method,” explained Janet Froetscher, NSC President & CEO. “Through this national standard, our nation’s professional drivers are protected from being unfairly punished by an inaccurate initial screen.”

“This new policy reflects the NSC’s belief that this national standard that protects professional drivers should be applied to protect everyone in society,” Froetscher said.

Representatives of the NSC’s 50,000 member organizations adopted this policy statement recently at their annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif.:

The National Safety Council and its Committee on Alcohol and Other Drugs strongly recommends that all presumptive positive drug screen results in samples obtained following transportation accidents be confirmed by an alternate analytical method prior to issuing a report. The practice of reporting presumptive positive results in these cases should be abolished. The transportation accident cases that are being referred to result from city, county, state or municipality enforcement entities requiring drug screens on drivers of cars, vans and non CDL regulated trucks who are involved in traffic related crashes. These drivers could be alive, injured or dead when the tests are administered.

The full policy statement is available here on the NSC website..

“This policy calls on states and municipalities to apply this standard of confirmatory second tests to assure that innocent citizens involved in traffic crashes are not penalized by inaccurate initial drug screens,“ Froetscher said. “The consequences to an individual who has a false-positive test may include loss of current and future employment, damage to reputation, denial of Workmen’s Compensation benefits and unnecessary complications in any criminal or civil litigation arising from a crash.“

The policy follows the accepted practice of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the American Board of Forensic Toxicologists, the Society of Forensic Toxicologists and other forensic toxicology laboratories worldwide.

The National Safety Council (www.nsc.org) was organized to saves lives by preventing injuries and deaths at work, in homes, communities and on the roads through leadership, research, education and advocacy.