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| March 2006 |
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Drug & Alcohol Updates From the U.S. DOT Office of Drug & Alcohol Policy & Compliance (ODAPC): Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM): The Department of Transportation is proposing to amend certain provisions of 49 CFR Part 40, its drug and alcohol testing procedures, to change instructions to laboratories, medical review officer, and employers with respect to adulterated, substituted, diluted and invalid specimen results. These proposed changes are intended to create consistency with specimen validity requirements established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and to modify some measures taken in two of their own interim final rules. This NPRM also proposes to make specimen validity testing (SVT) mandatory with the regulated transportation industries. SVT simply means to run tests on a urine sample to ensure that it is indeed urine and that it has not been adulterated/contaminated in any way. read more Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM): The Department of Transportation is proposing to add licensed and certified marriage and family therapists to the list of credentialed professions eligible to serve as substance abuse professionals under subpart O of 49 CFR Part 40. Editor’s Note: This rule change would expand the number of resources available to employers for referring employees who test positive for drugs/alcohol for evaluation. It should have no negative impact on cost. Additional information on the FAA’s recent change to 14 CFR Part 121 as it affects operators’ requirement to ensure contractors and subcontractors are in an FAA testing program: The January 2006 Newsletter stated that the FAA’s position on who must be tested under the FAA Antidrug and Alcohol Misuse Prevention Program rules. The key phrase in the FAA’s final rule pertains to employees, including helpers, assistants, or individuals in a training status, who perform a safety-sensitive function, listed in either appendix I or J directly or by contract, including by subcontract at any tier, for an employer. The significance of this rule clarification is that, although FAA regulations have always required a regulated employer to ensure any individual performing safety-sensitive functions by contract are covered by an FAA regulated drug and alcohol testing program, the responsibility for ensuring that their contractor’s subcontractor employees are covered by a program was never clearly specified. Now, every safety-sensitive employee, at any level of the repair process, must be in a covered program and it is the Part 121/135 operator’s responsibility to ensure compliance. The FAA does not mandate the mechanism for how an operator should accomplish/ensure compliance. However, given the fact that the FAA aggressively inspects Part 121/135/145 operators and repair stations, it behooves these companies to develop a process to document compliance. This amendment becomes effective on April 10, 1006.
Note of Interest:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . back to top From the U.S. Department of Labor: The following is quoted directly from the DOL’s announcement: Employers Encouraged to Recognize April as Alcohol Awareness Month Workplace alcohol use and impairment affect an estimated 15 percent of the U.S. workforce, or 19.2 million workers, according to the result of a recent study by the University at Buffalo’s Research Institute on Addictions. Clearly, these individuals’ behavior is of concern to the nation’s workplaces. Alcohol use can significantly impair a worker’s judgment and coordination, leading to an increased risk of on-the-job accidents and injuries. It can also lead to lower levels of productivity and employee morale, not only that of those with alcohol problems, but also those working alongside them. read more . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . back to top Commonly Abused Opioids and Morphine Derivitives
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . back to top The DAC News Service seeks to inform by providing information on topics of broad interest and concern to employers. Therefore, from time-to-time, we will select subjects we believe to be relevant and informative to the workplace environment. This month’s topic discusses “Opiate Use and Abuse.” Opiate Use and Abuse The opiates, often referred to as narcotics, are a broad family of drugs derived from the processing of opium which is extracted from the seed pod of certain varieties of poppy plants. The morphine derived from this process is one of the most powerful known pain killers and is commonly utilized in modern medicine. Other less powerful, but effective, pain killers derived from opium/morphine include codeine, hydrocodone (Vicodin), meperidine (Demerol), propoxyphene (Darvon), oxycodone (OxyContin), hydromorphone (Dilaudid) and diphenoxylate (Lomotil). All of these are commonly utilized by the medical profession to suppress pain, cough, diarrhea and other medical conditions. read more . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . back to top New Training Materials Now Available! USIS offers many products to meet federal and non-federal drug testing program requirements. Recent additions to our product package include a web-based Supervisor Training Program, Employee Educational Guides and FMCSA Policy on CD. Click here for more information and pricing on these and other products available. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . back to top View the 2006 Schedule for Commercial Services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .back to top Published by USIS
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