"Health & Medical News"

Citing lax security and procedures, undercover investigators said that it would be easy for truckers to cheat on mandatory drug tests required by federal law, NBC News reported Oct. 31.

The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) sent agents to 24 drug-testing sites using fake truck driver’s licenses and found that three-quarters failed to restrict items that could be used to adulterate urine samples. Agents were able to buy drug-masking kils online and use them at testing sites without being caught. “Every drug-masking product went undetected by the drug-screening labs,” the GAO report added.

Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee,?  called the findings “frankly astonishing and shocking and dismaying. You can manipulate the tests, you can mask substance abuse and go undetected on the roadways.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation maintains that less than 2 percent of truck drivers test positive for illicit drugs each year. But when the state of Oregon did its own tests this year, 9 percent of truckers tested positive.

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